


The Escort

by atetheredmind



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Escort Service, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:27:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28596201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atetheredmind/pseuds/atetheredmind
Summary: “Are you a clean, respectful, attractive man with a natural ability to sweep women off their feet? Are you in need of some extra cash? Call Capitol Tributes today to learn more—there are thousands of willing women eager to take YOU out for a night on the town RIGHT NOW!”Peeta Mellark is an escort, and Katniss Everdeen is just his client in desperate need of his company during wedding season. This is strictly a business arrangement; no funny business allowed. One problem: He wants her, bad.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 213
Collections: Prompts in Panem - Farewell Tour 2015





	The Escort

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Prompts in Panem years ago and am just now getting around to uploading here. Might have some more old Everlark fics to upload/reupload soon...
> 
> Special thanks to jennagill. This was entirely her idea that was inspired by an article about “Rent a Gent” and that she so willingly entrusted to me.
> 
> (Apologies if the formatting is messed up, I just copied this directly from tumblr.)

Peeta looks at the time on his phone before he swings the door to the coffee shop open. He’s a few minutes early, but it’s preferable to being late for this meeting, so he orders a drink to bide his time.

He’s at the condiments station, snapping a lid onto his cup of black coffee when the front door opens with a faint chime. He glances up to look at the small, raven-haired woman who hedges at the entrance, glancing around warily.

He has no idea what his client looks like, but judging from the apprehension holding her face tight, he guesses this is who he’s scheduled to meet. She’s pretty. Which surprises him since most of the clients he deals with…well, aren’t really lookers, conventionally speaking. And she seems younger than his typical middle-age client.

There’s only a handful of patrons in the shop, so her eyes land on him fairly quickly. He smiles politely, quirking an eyebrow in question. She should know what he looks like, as the agency he works for provides the clients with headshots.

Her lips part slightly as she takes a deep breath, seemingly as if to brace herself, then she gives a curt nod before heading toward him. Stopping a couple feet in front of him, she sticks her hand out to shake his. “Peeta?” she asks in greeting, and he doesn’t miss the way her eyes surreptitiously flicker down the length of his body and back to his face.

“Katniss, hi,” he says with another easy smile, squeezing her hand with just enough pressure before releasing her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too,” she says, back to awkwardly looking around at their surroundings. “Well. Should we grab a table?”

“Why don’t you do that, and I’ll order you a coffee?” he suggests. “What would you like to drink?”

“Oh. No.” She shakes her head adamantly. “I’ll get it myself. Just pick a table.”

With a nod, he finds a rather secluded table toward the back in the corner, and he sits down there to wait for Katniss. He sips his coffee carefully, blowing on it through the small slit a few times. When she sits down at the table, he takes note of her blueberry muffin and small hot chocolate.

“Not a fan?” he asks conversationally, and her eyes lift to meet his. He’s momentarily distracted by the color of her irises. Gray, he guesses. But that seems too simple of a word to describe them. Silver. Slate. Graphite?

“What?” she asks, and he blinks, focusing back on the question at hand. He gestures to her provisions.

“You asked to meet at a coffee shop, but you didn’t get coffee.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She shakes her head and peels the liner off her muffin, flattening it into a sort of paper skirt around the baked good. “If I drink caffeine this late in the day, I’ll never get to sleep. But a coffee shop seemed like neutral territory for a first encounter.”

He nods in agreement and smiles again. “Seems like something a boyfriend should know, right?”

Her cheeks turn red against her olive complexion, and she glances around the shop. “Right.” They fall into a brief silence while she nibbles at her muffin, and he finds himself fixated on her eyes again. Steel? Gunmetal? They’re framed by thick, black lashes, which make her irises seem darker than they probably are. He imagines what they’d look like, catching the sunlight.

He is so pathetically an artist.

Katniss clears her throat after sipping her hot chocolate. “Thanks for meeting me here,” she begins.

“It’s not a problem,” he assures her, smiling slightly. He doesn’t remind her that she’s paying him to be here.

“I figured we should talk since I’ll be…requiring your services during the summer.” She tries to keep her voice indifferent, business-like, but she still mumbles on the word ‘services.’ He just nods encouragingly. She hastily takes another sip of her drink, her tongue swiping along the corner of her mouth to catch an errant drop of the milky chocolate confection.

He’s beginning to think there’s nothing in the color palette to describe the gray color of her eyes.

“Look. Peeta.” He lifts his eyebrows earnestly when she hesitates. “Well, this is obviously pretty weird for me. And I’m not very comfortable with all of this.”

“I understand,” he says. “Everyone’s always nervous in the beginning. But for what it’s worth, you might be surprised at just how many women use this service.”

She fidgets with her braid, twirling the tail of it around her finger. “I’m not desperate,” she insists. She sounds exasperated. “I mean. Not that the _other_ women are—I don’t know. I don’t mean it like that. It’s just…it’s not that I can’t _get_ dates. It’s just that I don’t want to date,” she adds, her words rushing out.

He stops to consider this. He’s not sure if he’s ever encountered a client like this before. As a male companion for Capitol Tributes, Peeta accompanies many women on dates. Usually just for a night, and it’s strictly for his company and fine-tuned attentiveness and conversation. Anything sexual is off the table. Not even kissing is allowed. He’s not a male escort in the commonly accepted usage of the word, but even without the promise of sex, a lot of women pay Capitol Tributes, and the founder Johanna Mason, good money to enjoy a date with a desirable, attractive man from her roster of more than 50 prescreened, quality-insured companions.

The women he’s entertained before were all very similar in their reasons for hiring him, which normally came out after a few cocktails: They were lonely and sick of navigating the dating world to only encounter losers and rejection alike. And most of the time they just wanted a stand-in “boyfriend,” somebody they could show off to their family and friends so they could stop the barrage of questions and faux concern—"Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” “When are you getting married?” “You’re getting up there in years, you know!” “If you wait too long, you won’t be able to have kids!”—if only for the one night for which they hired him.

Katniss doesn’t look older than 30. She’s attractive—hell, she’s getting more attractive with every second that passes—

Mercury! Her eyes are the color of liquid mercury, _that’s_ the color descriptor that was escaping him.

Peeta shakes the thought away immediately, peaking his eyebrows to show his interest in what she’s saying. “You don’t want to date?” he asks, and when she shakes her head, he pushes for clarification. “And…pretend-dating me is the best way to convey that?”

At her deadpan expression, he can’t help but grin. “Sorry. I’m just curious about the line of reasoning here. If you’re the type of person who doesn’t want to date, well, that means I have to be the type of guy who would make you change your mind, right?”

She sighs, rubbing her brow absently. “I guess so,” she agrees. “Anyway. As I explained when I signed up for this, I need you to attend a few different functions with me this summer. I have four weddings to go to.”

Peeta’s eyebrows climb farther up his forehead, and he shakes his head. “Wedding season,” he mutters, sipping his coffee.

She nods solemnly. “Wedding season. And that also includes all the dinner rehearsals as well. Luckily, one wedding is just a coworker’s, and the other is an old high school friend I’m not extremely close to anymore. But one wedding is my mother’s. And the other is for my ex-boyfriend and my best friend.”

He coughs slightly, a trickle of coffee sticking in his throat. When he clears it, he looks at her with wide eyes. “Well. That sounds awkward. For you.”

She shrugs. “Not really. Well, maybe. I’m not bothered by it. Gale and I dated a long time ago. I guess it is a little weird to be the maid of honor in my ex’s wedding though.”

Peeta laughs. “I couldn’t tell you from personal experience. But I’m starting to get a better picture of why you hired me.”

Katniss sighs again, before tearing off a chunk of her muffin. She chews it slowly, carefully, and doesn’t speak until she swallows it. “They’re the least of my concern, honestly. My mother is the real driving force for all of this. She’s getting remarried. Which is good for her. My father died a long time ago. But she won’t stop worrying about me. I just need to get her off my back, otherwise I’m afraid she’ll just screw up this relationship, wasting too much time worrying about the one daughter she has left. She deserves to be happy. And I don’t know if I can be there for her again if she slips into another depression.”

He mulls this over. “She’s that worried about you being single?” he asks with a thoughtful frown, and she lifts her eyes to him. They cloud over slightly, and she shifts uncomfortably across from him. “You don’t have to tell me everything, Katniss. I understand.”

“It’s probably something you should know…” she says softly. “My, um…my little sister died a few years ago. Hit by a drunk driver. Her name was Prim.”

Peeta swallows his horror, his stomach growing unsettled. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks.” Her voice is hollow. “Anyway. I was…depressed for a while. So was my mom. But she’s better now. Falling in love again helped her. So naturally she thinks it’ll do the same for me, and because I’m not in love, then I must still be languishing in misery every day.”

“Are you?” he asks before he can think better of it. It’s an intensely personal question to ask, especially of a client, but listening to her talk about her family situation, the tragedies she’s endured, he almost felt like he was talking to a friend. If only for a brief moment.

She looks surprised by the question. “No, I…no.” She pauses. “Not really. Not most of the time. I’m not…some days are bad. But most days are okay. My being single isn’t about Prim. Not anymore, at least.”

He nods and purses his lips together, trying to bring the conversation back to a professional level. “Okay. Well, since we’ll be attending a lot of functions together, we should probably get our story straight. How did we meet?”

Her mouth curls down in a pensive frown as she thinks. “I don’t know how people meet these days—aside from escort services, apparently,” she says wryly, and he quirks a smile. Her eyes brighten slightly. “Do you know Finnick?”

Her question catches him off guard. “Odair? Yeah. We work together at Capitol Tributes.” Finnick is the most popular male companion. He’s incredibly good-looking, like old-Hollywood attractive. He’s charming and extremely debonair—at least with the clients. On a personal level, he’s pretty laid-back and genuine. And he’s also married, which is extremely confusing to Peeta, how a woman could be okay with her husband escorting countless women on multiple dates a month, but Finnick had confided in him that he and Annie are trying to get pregnant and IVF is their only option—quite an expensive one, at that.

Katniss nods. “Yeah. That’s how I found out about Capitol Tributes. He’s a really good friend of mine. Coworker and friend. We work at a biochem lab together. He told me he does this on the side. When I told him about my wedding predicament, he suggested I call. Actually, you came highly recommended by Finnick.”

He snorts in amusement, shaking his head. “I had no idea he felt that way about me,” he says. “Okay, well. We can just tweak that a little. Just say we met through our mutual friend Finnick. He wouldn’t stop pestering you about setting you up with his amazing single friend, and finally you agreed to a blind date a few weeks ago. You were only doing it for Finnick’s sake, but I immediately swept you off your feet with my charm and sense of humor, and you’ve been smitten ever since.”

He grins to show he’s mostly not serious. She snorts in a dry laugh, rolling her eyes, but they dance with amusement. “That doesn’t sound like me at all. My friends and family will immediately suspect I’m paying you. More like…I decided I didn’t mind having you around.”

He shrugs. “Fair enough.” Swigging his cooling coffee, he sets the cup down and leans toward her, bracing his elbows on the table. “So, what else do I need to know about you?”

They spend the next half hour hammering out the details of their fake romance. Once they’ve got everything lined up, he tells her goodbye with the promise to pick her up two Saturdays from now for the first wedding of the summer, her coworker’s.

* * *

Dressed in a black, tailored tux, Peeta picks Katniss up from her apartment at 4. It’s an evening wedding, and she’s dressed in a short black dress that skims effortlessly across her olive, toned thighs. Her black hair is pulled up into an intricate plait, and her gray eyes shimmer even more with her faint eye makeup.

He’s smiling before he even has to remind himself to. “You look beautiful,” he tells her as she turns around to lock her door.

She gives him a look from the corner of her eye. “You don’t have to say that,” she says suspiciously.

He slides his hands into his pockets while he waits on her step. “I know I don’t have to. Why does anyone tell anyone they look nice? Because it’s true.”

At that, she blushes faintly, and averts her gaze to stuff her keys into her clutch. “Oh. Thank you. You look…handsome.”

He smiles his gratitude and holds his arm out for her. She takes his elbow hesitantly, and they walk side-by-side out of the building to his car. At the cafe, she’d told him she wanted to drive, but he argued that if they were really dating, he’d likely be the one driving them to the wedding. She’d gotten snappish about “outdated gender norms,” and he’d agreed with her arguments, really, but still, he’d convinced her to humor him.

It’s a 20-minute drive to the venue, and Peeta grills her on as much information about her coworkers as she can tell him, so he has at least a preliminary idea of who they are.

“My coworker’s name is Cressida. Her fiancee’s name is Messalla. She’s a technician with me and Finnick—oh,” Katniss looks over at him. “Finnick will be there too. That’s not weird for you guys, is it?”

“No, we’re consummate professionals,” he tells her and then laughs. “The only thing that could make this weird is if any of the other guests are former clients of ours.”

She makes a face, smoothing a hand over her hair. “And what are the chances of that?”

“In this city? Nearly impossible,” he says to assuage her worry of being found out. “I haven’t done this that long. I’ve had a dozen or so clients, 20 tops. Now Finnick on the other hand…” He just trails off with a smile, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as they wait at a stop light.

“Hm.” She’s quiet for a moment, staring at the tail lights of the car in front of them. “So…why did you start working at Capitol Tributes?”

His eyes dart to her then straight ahead again, and he eases onto the gas pedal. “Being an artist isn’t a very lucrative career. Not when you’re alive anyway.”

She hums, a small amused laugh. “Painter?” she guesses, and he nods. “You have a gallery or something?” Another nod. “Are you any good?”

“Terrible,” he says, pulling into the parking lot of the venue. There’s valet taking the guests’ cars, so Peeta hands his key to a red-haired woman and takes the slip with a grateful thanks before circling the car to Katniss’ side. She’s fidgeting with the clutch in her hands, staring uncertainly at the venue entrance. Despite her earlier bravado and no-nonsense attitude in the cafe, Peeta understands immediately he will have to be the one to take charge on these dates. “Ready?” he asks, tilting his head toward the doors.

She nods, flashing terse, polite smiles at people walking past them, some she presumably recognizes. As they walk into the building, Peeta stays close to her side. His hand hovers at the small of her back, but he doesn’t actually touch her.

“How much physical contact are you comfortable with?” he asks, his voice low and discreet, and she lifts wide eyes to him. Then she raises a dubious eyebrow.

“Are you asking if you can get fresh with me?”

Her tone is so dry, he’s not entirely sure if she’s joking or not. He shakes his head. “God, no. I’m definitely not allowed to do that.”

She frowns. “Allowed?” They pass someone who directs them to a table to sign a guestbook, and they don’t speak again until they’re alone.

“Company policy. We can’t mess around with clients,” he explains, grabbing a paper program from the table. He flips through it idly then slips it into his pocket as he watches her scribble a generic message and her name—sans his—in the guest book.

“Oh.” Her cheeks flush a little at that. She slips an envelope from her purse and adds it to the pile of wedding gifts.

“I assumed that’s why you called us instead of an _actual_ escort service.” He keeps his voice low, amusement thick.

She fiddles with her purse as they move farther inside, in the direction of the rows of chairs pointed toward a makeshift altar. “Right. Of course. I guess I just thought—I mean, I didn’t know it was a matter of policy. I figured some of you—um, some of the…male companions slept with their clients.” She shrugs.

He mimics her gesture. “It happens sometimes, I guess. But if the CEO finds out, she’ll fire you so fast, your head will spin. Prostitution isn’t technically legal.” He only knows of one coworker, Cato Sargent, who had sex with the women. He was fired the moment Johanna found out he’d been sleeping with a number of his clients on his dates with them.

Katniss snorts, but curiosity softens her brow. “So how do they make sure it doesn’t happen?”

He considers his response; he’s never been personally tempted to linger on a date with any of his clients before. But the company does have a process in place to try to prevent this kind of situation. “They usually call both parties after the date is over to make sure they’ve gone their separate ways at the end of the night,” he says, dutifully letting Katniss choose their seats. She picks a middle row on the left, the bride’s side. “It’s not foolproof, obviously. But normally it’s enough to discourage…unprofessional behavior.”

She just hums thoughtfully as they settle into their seats. After a moment, she tells him, “I’m okay with light touching.” She rolls her eyes, seeming to think better of her word choice. He suppresses a smile. “I mean…you know what I mean.”

Peeta experiments by draping his arm around her shoulder, forcing her to lean into his side a little. “This okay?” he asks, and she nods. She feels stiff under him, but then she takes a deep breath and relaxes some. When he inhales, he gets a whiff of her perfume, or shampoo. It’s citrusy and clean, just a slight undertone of something floral. It’s not sweet or cloying like he’s used to when it comes to women’s perfumes, and he likes it more than he expects. He inhales again, a little more deeply. It stirs something in his chest, and low in his gut, and he clears his throat, letting his eyes scan the room.

After a while, as the guests filter into the room, a couple comes up to them. An attractive couple, a little older than Peeta and Katniss, with smooth, dark skin.

“Katniss, hey,” the man greets. She tenses beside Peeta for the briefest of moments before slipping out from under his arm, smiling as she leans over the seats in front of them to hug the man and his date. Peeta stands to be polite.

“Hi, Cinna. Portia, how are you?”

“We’re doing great,” Portia replies, but she’s scrutinizing Peeta with an intrigued glint in her eye. “Who’s your mystery date?”

“I’m Peeta,” he says, taking the initiative to shake their hands.

“Peeta, this is my coworker, Cinna. And this is his partner, Portia,” Katniss says as they all exchange greetings.

“I didn’t know you were dating anyone,” Cinna says jovially, and despite her and Peeta’s rehearsed answer for this exact moment and question, Katniss flusters.

“Oh, I’m—we’re—we just met,” she stammers. “I mean, a few weeks ago. It’s still…new.”

Peeta smiles at her. “She won’t let me out of the house,” he jokes, and Cinna and Portia laugh. Katniss just flushes a deep red.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Cinna says, and the two excuse themselves to say hey to someone else. When they’re gone, Katniss glares at him.

“I won’t let you out of the _house_?” she hisses, then she groans. “They’re going to think I’m some kind of sex freak or something.”

He laughs, sitting back down when she flops into her seat. “Is that so bad?”

“ _Yes_. I don’t want my coworkers to think anything about my sex life,” she grumbles.

“I’m sorry. I promise I wasn’t trying to insinuate anything about your sex life,” he says placatingly. “I doubt they’re imagining you as some kind of domme or mistress. Though, they do say it’s always the quiet ones…”

She rolls her eyes, but he sees the corners of her mouth tick upward. “Let’s just sit quietly and try to make it through the ceremony without divulging any more of your weird kinks and fantasies,” she says sternly, and he chuckles, pulling out the program he grabbed earlier to read while they wait.

* * *

The ceremony is beautiful, nontraditional, which isn’t surprising to Peeta given the general aesthetic of the bride and groom: shaved heads, wildly colored hair, ornate tattoos, and numerous piercings.

At some point Peeta turns his head toward Katniss, moving his mouth close so he can speak quietly. “And you’re worried about your coworkers thinking _you’re_ a freak in the bedroom?” She elbows him in the side, and he chokes back a groaning laugh, trying to sober his expression. He shouldn’t antagonize his client so much, but he can’t seem to help himself. She’s fun to rile up.

She’s only glaring at him half-heartedly as they move to the reception, her gray eyes alight with exasperated humor.

They’re seated at a table with Finnick and Annie, luckily—or unluckily—enough. Finnick grins conspiratorially at Peeta as he pulls out Katniss’ seat for her before sitting down himself.

“Peeta, Katniss,” he greets, lifting his wine glass in cheers. “I’m so happy this little love connection I made is working out.”

Katniss narrows her eyes at him. “Yes. Thank you for setting us up, Finnick.”

Annie looks confused, and she raises an eyebrow at her husband in question. He continues to grin. “Oh, Peeta’s just…an old friend of mine. I thought the two of them might hit it off.”

At least Finnick’s being discreet, Peeta thinks, nodding in thanks when a server offers to pour him a glass of water. “Yes, we’re forever in your debt, Odair,” he says dryly before taking a sip.

“Do you work with Finnick and Katniss?” Annie asks.

“Ah, no, I don’t work with Katniss,” Peeta sidesteps the part about Finnick, glancing over at Katniss. “I work at an art gallery.” He hates calling himself an artist. Besides sounding pretentious, it always invites the prying followup questions about whether he’s successful and how much money he makes selling his work. That inevitably leads to curiosity about what else he does to supplement his income, and telling people he’s a kind of escort is usually not the type of small talk he likes to indulge.

“Oh.” Annie’s face lights up. “Do you paint or…?”

“Yeah, actually, I mostly paint.”

She smiles at him and looks to Katniss. “Is he any good?”

Her eyes widen, cutting to Peeta. “Oh. I, uh. Yes. I mean. I haven’t actually seen his stuff yet,” she admits, beseeching him with her eyes.

He laughs. “I’m very private with my work,” he tells Annie, but he brushes some wisps of hair off the nape of Katniss’ neck. “I’ll show you someday, sweetheart.”

Her chest flushes, the red disappearing below the scoop of her dress’ neckline. They all chat some more, including another couple that sits down at their table, for a few more minutes before Peeta realizes Katniss has grown reticent—more so than what he’s come to know of her in the limited time he’s spent with her.

“You okay?” he asks, leaning toward her to touch her elbow lightly.

She nods. “You’re just…really good at this,” she says warily, and he lifts an eyebrow at her.

“Lucky for you.” He cranes his neck around until he spots what he’s looking for. “You want me to get you a drink?”

She nods again but then shakes her head. “Actually, I’ll come with you.” She looks relieved to get away from the table. This time, he rests his palm on the small of her back to guide her toward the open bar.

She orders a vodka tonic, and he just asks for a Bud Light, since he has to drive later. When the bartender hands them their drinks, Katniss takes a large gulp of hers, then another, finishing it in under 15 seconds before Peeta even has a chance to take his first sip.

She winces, probably from the pain of the cold liquid splintering her head, and ducks Peeta’s bug-eyed stare. “Liquid courage,” she says, embarrassed, ordering another one.

“I’m not sure if I should be offended or not that you feel like you need to be drunk to be around me,” he ribs her before he takes an easy swig of his beer. She scrunches her nose. “Looks like they’re starting to serve food.”

She looks back at their table and frowns. “I think I’m too anxious to eat.”

The bartender slides her second drink across the bar, and Peeta takes it with a nod, gently pushing it into Katniss’ hands. “You know, there’s generally less talking you have to do when you’re eating,” he reminds her, and her eyes brighten.

“Suddenly, I am famished.”

* * *

They only stay at the reception for a couple hours, long enough to hear all the speeches and eat some cake, laughing and clapping politely as the bride and groom smash chunks of frosting in each other’s face. Katniss refuses to dance, so they just sit at the table by themselves, drinking and chatting intermittently. Once she sees a few other people make a break for it, she finishes the drink in her hand and stands up.

Taking that as his cue, Peeta doesn’t even bother to finish his second beer. Once he’s on his feet, he offers her his elbow, which she takes gratefully. A little unsteady in her heels, she leans heavily into him as they walk out of the building to the valet. Peeta hands his slip to the same woman from before, and they wait for her to pull his car up front.

“You feeling okay?” he asks, tipping his chin down to look at her. She’s still got a firm hold of his arm, but her body feels deliciously delicate and light against his. She lifts her head up to meet his eyes and nods. Her eyes look a little glassy, but she blinks to clear them.

“Yeah. Thanks. Sorry for getting a little drunk. My feet are killing me.”

He laughs. “You’re fine. What else are you supposed to do at weddings?” His car pulls up in front of them, and Peeta helps her into the passenger side, taking his keys from the redhead. He gets in on his side and after making sure Katniss is buckled in, he pulls away from the curb.

She’s quiet as he drives, her head lolling back on the headrest, her eyes drifting shut, so Peeta lets her doze. When they reach her apartment, he quietly gets out of the car and walks around to her side, opening the door to gently nudge her awake.

“Hey. We’re here.”

Her eyes flutter open, zeroing in on his face. “Oh.” She slips out of her seatbelt, and he helps her out of the car by taking her hand. He doesn’t let go as he leads her inside, not until they reach her door. There, he untangles his hand from hers and turns to face her. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I hope I lived up to your expectations for the evening.”

She nods, dropping her gaze to look for her keys in her purse. “You did,” she says softly. “Um. I’ll contact you in a couple weeks then? For the next wedding?”

“I’ll be waiting,” he says and gently squeezes her upper arm in farewell, flashing her a soft smile. “Have a good night, Katniss.”

“Night, Peeta.” Her words follow him out of the building to his car. As he’s sliding into the driver’s side, he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. Twisting his hips to pull it out, he looks at the screen. It’s a text from Finnick.

_You two left in an awful hurry. Calling it a night?_

Peeta closes his eyes briefly, shaking his head to himself. Finnick must have been tasked with the responsibility of making sure his coworker doesn’t fuck the client. Peeta types out a reply: _Yep I just dropped her off at her home. She had a little too much to drink. I’m heading back to my place now._

_Thatta boy ;)_ , comes Finnick’s response, and Peeta rolls his eyes, stuffing his phone back into his pocket before starting his car and pulling out of Katniss’ parking lot.

* * *

When he picks her up for the next wedding, she’s wearing a cream-colored dress with a low back and black lace accents. The hue makes her skin look darker, decadent even, and her shiny, wavy hair is pushed to the side over one shoulder. He has to force himself not to ogle her, takes a hard, dry swallow, fixing a smile in place.

“Hey. You look wonderful,” he tells her as she drops her keys back inside her purse, taking the arm he offers her.

“Thank you,” she returns with a touch of shyness. “You men have it so easy. You can wear the same suit to all of these functions, and no one will know or care.”

“Hey. I pick out a different tie each time.” His smile widens, and he leads her to his car. “You could wear the same dress. They’re all different weddings, with different people.”

She shakes her head. “No. Just think of the Facebook albums. Four different weddings, and I’m wearing the same dress in all of them? How passé.”

He laughs and holds the car door open for her, dutifully averting his eyes as she primly slides into the low seat, trying to hold her dress in place so she doesn’t flash him. He really doesn’t need that thought in his head, what cut and color panties she’s wearing.

Shit. He shouldn’t have thought the word _panties_.

Heat creeps up his neck and, once he’s sure her legs are safely tucked inside, he shuts the door and hurries to his side, climbing into the driver’s seat and starting the car.

This wedding is about an hour outside of the city, at a little apple orchard according to Katniss, so he sets his radio to NPR for some background noise, leaving them the option to either talk over it or listen if she isn’t up for small talk.

“So,” she begins, and he glances at her. “Funny story for you. You remember meeting my coworker Cinna and his partner, Portia?” Peeta nods. “They really want to go on a double date with us.”

His eyes widen, darting between her and the road. Then he laughs. “Oh. Shit.”

“Exactly.” Her face looks grim, but her tone is wry.

“What did you tell them?”

She sighs, threading her fingers through her hair to comb the ends. “I floundered for a bit, said we’d have to see, that you were really busy with work, and we had all these events to go to this summer already. So I think I managed to put them off for a bit, and hopefully by the time they ask again, I can concoct some story about how we broke up.”

Peeta nods and flashes her a sympathetic smile. “Sorry. The hazards of fake dating, I guess. Should I be more of an asshole, would that help?”

“No, that would probably be worse.”

He nods again, agreeing. It’s a fine balance he has to walk; you don’t want your clients’ friends and family getting too attached to you, but you don’t want them to hate you because that just reflects badly on the client.

“Luckily, I don’t think we’ll encounter much of anyone at this wedding who’ll really care about double dating us,” she muses. He asks her for a crash course on the bride and groom, and she fills him in.

“The bride is a friend from high school, Leevy. And, well, the other bride’s name is Bristel.”

Peeta is momentarily caught off guard. “Oh—I didn’t—I mean, that’s cool,” he struggles for his response, blushing when she starts laughing. “I’m sorry. I have nothing against it, I swear, I’ve just never been to a wedding for a same-sex couple before. I shouldn’t have just assumed it was a heterosexual couple, I guess.”

She’s still laughing, and he smiles sheepishly, still feeling like an asshole. “It’s okay. This is a first for me, too. It’s kind of cool though. Where I grew up, it’s not the most…open-minded town. That’s probably why the wedding is at an orchard and not in a church.”

“Is that where we’re going?” he asks, sneaking another look at her. “Your hometown?”

She nods. “There about.”

Peeta’s admittedly a little intrigued by this, seeing where she grew up, what kind of town made her into the woman she is now. It’s not often a glimpse he gets into his clients.

* * *

The orchard is gorgeous, and so is the ceremony, officiated under the heavy boughs of apple trees. There’s a soft breeze wafting the pungent scent of apples through the air, ruffling his hair and kissing Katniss’ skin. The sun is still hot, warming him immeasurably through his suit, and once the reception starts, Peeta shrugs out of his tuxedo jacket and rolls his shirt sleeves up.

Katniss smiles apologetically at him. “You’re going to get sunburned, aren’t you?” she asks, sipping her drink, some tart, refreshing apple cider made especially at the orchard.

He squints in the sunlight. “Yeah, probably. I’m not lucky enough to tan.”

“Thank god for melanin,” she says a little smugly, shrugging her already-tanned shoulder in a haughty fashion. He tries not to take in the expanse of bare olive skin, on her arms, her legs.

Yes. Thank god.

He swallows his own cider eagerly, ready for the buffet to start.

They’re seated at a table with a few other people, an older couple and a couple younger women who appear to be single. Katniss doesn’t know them, which is a small relief since it means not having to sell their cover story too hard. Peeta attempts to make polite small talk with the other guests, but he doesn’t miss the interested looks the single women give him over their drinks and forks, so he turns his sole focus to Katniss.

He can’t tell if she looks entertained or annoyed by the other women’s attentions, idly sipping her drink and humming attentively as he talks.

Other people are dancing now, and after a while Katniss sets her glass down when a slower song comes on. “Wanna dance?”

Peeta’s surprised, since she was so staunchly opposed to dancing at the last wedding. “Sure,” he agrees readily. Weddings aren’t a whole lot of fun if you’re not drinking and dancing, in his experience.

Standing up, Peeta catches her hand to help her to her feet. He excuses them from the table and leads her to the space cleared in the middle of the tables for dancing. He turns to face her, pulling her close but leaving just enough space between their bodies so they aren’t pressed too intimately together. He clasps her right hand in his left, and wraps his other arm around her waist, resting his hand against the small of her back.

Her dress is cut low enough that he touches skin, and she jumps slightly. He freezes. “Sorry—should I move my hand?” he offers hurriedly, but she shakes her head.

“No, it’s okay. You just—your hand is cold from your drink, I think,” she says, but there’s a redness illuminating her cheeks, like the apples hanging above them.

Her free hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and they begin to sway to the music. Luckily, a makeshift dance floor has been laid out on the ground, so Katniss’ heels don’t sink into the dirt as they move. Her forehead is level with his mouth now, close enough that he could just lean forward to press his lips there. At this proximity, he can make out the few faint freckles on her nose, cheeks, probably darkened by the sun.

She glances up at him then, and her eyes, closer than usual, glint in the light like obsidian glass. His breath stutters in his chest.

God. She’s beautiful.

“So,” he breathes out, but the sound is wobbly. He’s never wobbly, never less than collected on these dates. He forces an easy smile at her. “Having a good time?”

She looks away. “Yeah,” she answers softly. When she looks back up at him, she returns his smile. “Dancing’s not so bad.”

“Especially when you’re dancing with a pro.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Pro?”

He chuckles. “Well, pro as in I’ve taken professional dance classes.”

She narrows her eyes at him in disbelief. “Shut up.”

He shrugs, smiling. “You never know what kind of dates you’re going to be asked on in my line of work,” he says. “I like to be prepared.”

She finally laughs, and her hand slides down his chest, her fingers curling under the collar of his shirt where he’d loosened his tie some earlier. “Okay, so what exactly do you know how to do?”

“Any ballroom dance. The waltz, tango, samba, merengue. Swing.”

She laughs harder at that. “Swing?”

“Why is that funny?” But he’s grinning. She shakes her head.

“I don’t know. I didn’t realize people still swing dance. And you’re built more like a linebacker than a dancer.”

“I was a wrestler in school, thank you very much.” He shrugs. “I don’t know, these shoulders are pretty good for throwing women over them.” Shit. That sounds sexual. “For swing dancing, I mean,” he laughs weakly.

She averts her eyes, her cheeks tinged pink again, but she thins her lips to suppress a smile. “Mmhmm. I’m sure.”

His breathing shallows a little, his pulse thrumming in his neck. His palms feel a little clammy against her skin. Are they flirting? It certainly feels like it.

There’s no harm in flirting with the clients, really. In fact, it’s a little encouraged. It helps settle the women, makes them open up, feeling the thrill of being wanted or found desirable, regardless of the sincerity of it on the companion’s part. Objectively speaking, he’s been flirting a little with Katniss since their first date, just to help set the mood. That’s just how he interacts with people in general, though, lighthearted and jovial.

This feels a little different, though. This feels real.

For once, the flirting actually excites _him_.

He’s gotta reel himself in.

Luckily, the song ends, so they head back to their table. They eat their food, drink some more, watch other couples dance. They congratulate the brides personally when they have a free minute, the two women hugging Katniss and him enthusiastically.

The sun is setting now, and the celebration is winding down, so Katniss checks to see if he’s ready to leave. He grabs his suit jacket, and they head for his car. She’s not nearly as tipsy as she was at the last wedding, so she’s wide awake on the drive home.

“Wanna listen to some music?” he offers, and she nods, taking his phone when he hands it over to her.

“Wow, you’re brave,” she muses, thumbing through his library of songs. “I never let anybody touch my radio.”

He smiles, rolling his shoulders to recline in his seat some more, hand draped casually over the steering wheel as he drives down a dark, rural road. “I’m confident you’ll find something you like.”

“We’ll see,” she murmurs skeptically. She’s quiet for a moment as she peruses then finally she hums and looks up at him. “I’m surprised. You have good music tastes.”

He laughs. “Why is that surprising?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I expected. I kind of thought all of this,” she gestures to him, “was an act, maybe, who you were being. You know. For the benefit of your dates. What do you call them? Clients.”

He frowns pensively and shakes his head. “No. I mean, I don’t think I put on an act, not really. Not about what version of me I present on the dates. Part of it’s already exhausting, the pretend romance stuff. I don’t think I have the energy to fake being someone else.”

She makes a thoughtful noise then goes back to looking through his music, finally settling on a Cold War Kids song. After a moment, she asks, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

He stiffens slightly but forces his hand to loosen around the steering wheel. “No,” he says, glancing at her from the corner of his eye then back to the road.

“I was just curious…you know, if you had one, what she thought about this…job.”

“Oh.” He shrugs. “I haven’t actually dated anyone in a while, not in a real way,” he says with a quiet laugh. “Not since I started working at Capitol Tributes. I can’t imagine a lot of girlfriends would be okay with this line of work, though.”

“You wouldn’t like it if your girlfriend was an escort,” she points out, and he shakes his head.

“Definitely not. But…it’s a little different. This will probably sound sexist or antiquated—” He looks at her quickly before continuing, “But the kind of men who pay for an escort…they want one thing in particular. Or expect it, anyway. Even if they want companionship, they also feel entitled to more. Women mostly just want the companionship when they use our service. I don’t have to worry about…being pressured or taken advantage of, not the way a woman does.”

Katniss nods thoughtfully. Eventually, she says, “Annie is a very secure woman, I guess.” Peeta nods in agreement. “I couldn’t handle it. I think I would absolutely want to murder someone for getting to enjoy my boyfriend in that way, no matter how chaste the night is.”

Maybe that should be an off-putting admission, but Peeta finds her honesty refreshing. And the possessiveness a little…exciting.

“Yeah,” he agrees distractedly, trying to focus on the road. She turns her head to stare out the window, and the soft music fills the quiet.

At her apartment, he walks her to his door. He feels antsy, restless, and he keeps his hands to himself, safely tucked in his pockets. “I had a great time,” he tells her, which is what he always says at the ends of these dates, but he really does mean it this time.

She nods with a small smile, but her lips press together, and she regards him hesitantly. “My mom’s wedding is next weekend. The rehearsal dinner is Friday. Technically, it’s not something you have to be there for, but since my mom knows I’m bringing a date to the wedding, she kind of expects you to show up for the rehearsal…to meet her and everything,” she says uncertainly.

“Katniss, I’ll be at whatever you need me to be at,” he tells her. “Just tell me when to pick you up.”

Her smile widens with gratitude. “Okay. Thank you. The rehearsal is at 5, and then dinner is around 6. I’ll drive this time though.” Her tone is final, leaving no room for argument, and he defers to her.

“Whatever you think is best.”

Sensing the end of the discussion, Peeta leans in to kiss her cheek in farewell. He means for it to be quick, perfunctory, but her eyelids droop when she sees him moving in, and her long lashes flutter just barely against his own cheek, like her own form of kiss. It distracts him, the light, tickling sensation, and he ends up lingering, his lips grazing her soft skin, his lungs expanding as he takes a deep inhale of her faint scent, before he realizes what he’s doing.

He pulls back immediately, slipping an unaffected smile into place. She looks up at him with hooded eyes, her pink lips parted just slightly in surprise. “See you later,” he tries to say with a modicum of nonchalance, but his voice sounds gravely, throaty.

She barely manages a nod before he heads back to his car.

That was okay, right? he tells himself as he gets behind the wheel. He often kisses his dates goodnight at the end, just a chaste kiss on the cheek. Which is what this was. Chaste.

Too bad his gut is heavy with something decidedly unchaste at this moment.

* * *

Peeta still drives to Katniss’ place on Friday, but he gets in her car so she can take them to the rehearsal. He’s dressed more casually today, in his black jeans and plaid shirt. She’s a little more dressed down as well, in just a chambray shirt dress and ankle boots, her hair pulled to the side in a braid.

It kind of looks like she’s wearing a man’s shirt, actually. Which is stupidly hot.

He stifles a groan and smiles instead, buckling his seatbelt. “So what should I expect with your mom?” he asks to distract himself from the way the muscles flex in her thigh and calf as she presses on the gas pedal.

“Um. She’s not a hardass, so she’s not going to grill you. She’ll likely ask you some questions, but she’ll be nice. Polite. I’ll try to deflect as much as possible, but I’m sure she’ll want to know how you’re treating me. Stupid shit like that.” She rolls her eyes.

He laughs slightly. “Should I lay it on thick then?”

“Oh. I don’t know. Just be your usual charming self,” she says, waving a hand dismissively. “She’ll love you, I’m sure.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m sure you’re exactly the type of guy she wishes I would date.”

“A male escort?”

Katniss huffs out a laugh. “No. You just look…wholesome. All-American. Exactly the kind of guy you bring home to meet your mom. You know.”

The irony. A wholesome escort. He snorts, turning to look out the window. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Katniss. Most parents do not like their daughters dating hapless, money-strapped artists.” God knows his mother reminds him of that fact enough.

In the corner of his eye, he sees Katniss shake her head. “No, my mom doesn’t care about that kind of stuff.” Her voice is quiet, and he looks back at her. “My dad was poor, came from the wrong side of the tracks, basically. She didn’t care. She would understand. If I was in love.”

Peeta swallows and looks away again, mulling her words over. “And what about the man she’s marrying now?” he asks conversationally.

She sighs raggedly. “Haymitch is…something. He’s a bit…much. Very different from my dad. I guess he’s a good person under the crusty exterior. He’s a recovering alcoholic. That’s how they met, actually. Years ago, at an AA meeting.” Katniss hesitates, glancing over at him. “Um, she was…she became dependent on a lot of prescription drugs after my sister died. She’s clean now though.”

He just nods solemnly, turning to offer her a small, sympathetic smile. She looks nervous, like she’s expecting him to judge her and her family.

“My mom’s an alcoholic,” he offers. “She hasn’t gotten clean though.” He doubts she ever will, either.

Katniss looks at him more fully before shifting her eyes back to the road. “It’s hard,” she commiserates, and he just nods. They don’t talk the rest of the drive, but it’s not an uncomfortable silence.

When they arrive at the church 20 minutes later, Peeta offers her his hand. She only considers it briefly before she slides her hand into his with a flicker of a smile. Her hand is small and soft in his, and the contact warms his entire body.

He nods at the church. “You lead the way,” he says, and she takes a deep breath, pushing the door of the chapel open.

Her mother spots them almost immediately, looking up from her conversation with someone who appears to be the minister before the door even shuts behind them. Peeta wouldn’t have even realized it was Katniss’ mother if Katniss hadn’t squeezed his hand in warning. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman looks nothing like the dark beauty at his side—hell, she looks more like his mom.

“Katniss!” she says, pulling her daughter into her hug. Katniss releases his hand to hug her back.

“Hey, mom,” she says, and when they let go of each other a moment later, Katniss turns her eyes to him. In that look, he can see how nervous she is. “Mom, this is—Peeta, I told you about him.”

He puts on his best meet-the-parents smile. Not too wide or beaming, but loose, relaxed, sincere. “It’s so nice to meet you, Ms. Everdeen.” He reaches out to shake her hand, and she takes it.

“Oh. Please. Florence is fine. Ms. Everdeen sounds too formal for my daughter’s boyfriend. And it won’t be Everdeen starting tomorrow, anyway.” Peeta senses Katniss stiffen beside him, something her mother said obviously rubbing her the wrong way, and he reaches out to wrap an arm around her to lend his support.

“Congratulations on the upcoming wedding and marriage. I’m honored to be a part of it,” he tells her, and she waves a hand dismissively.

“Thank you. I was rather surprised when Katniss said she had a date to bring. I’m curious to know more about the man dating my daughter. How did you two meet?”

Peeta looks down at Katniss with a raised eyebrow, wondering if she should answer or if he. Judging by the slightly gray pallor of her face, however, he realizes he’s going to have to steer this conversation. He imagines it must be hard on her having to lie so blatantly to her own mother.

“Well, we met on a blind date a couple months ago actually,” he says easily, offering Katniss a fond smile before looking back at her mother. “Our mutual friend thought we’d hit it off, and, well..he was right.” He laughs lightly, squeezing Katniss’ hip. Her body is warm and soft against his. “Katniss is wonderful. Really, I owe you my gratitude for raising such a smart, funny, amazing woman.”

As he expected, her mother looks positively touched, pride swelling in her eyes. She gives them both soft smiles. “Well, thank you, Peeta. But, truthfully, Katniss was always good at raising herself. I don’t know how much I had to do with that.”

“Oh god,” Katniss grumbles, rubbing at her forehead. “This is extremely embarrassing for me right now.”

Peeta chuckles, and Florence laughs. Someone calls for Florence—a slightly paunchy man, with dark hair and dark skin, not too different from Katniss’ coloring. “Oh, excuse me, we need to go over some details before we can start the rehearsal. I’m sure I’ll see you at the dinner later, Peeta.” Florence kisses her daughter’s temple before scurrying back down the aisle.

Katniss exhales in relief, and Peeta untangles his arm from around her waist. He realizes her hand is fisting the side of his shirt slightly, but she releases him.

“Did I oversell it?” he asks lightheartedly, and she gives him a stern scowl, but it’s doing little to disguise the smile threatening her features.

“A little. Luckily, my mom is too preoccupied to question it too much. Otherwise, she’d probably be giving us the third degree right now. I’ve never brought home such a nice guy before.”

“It’s the truth. She can’t be that surprised to hear such compliments about her daughter,” he says, looking up when a woman with pink hair and ridiculously high heels claps her hands to get the attention of those in the church. Peeta squeezes Katniss’ shoulders and ducks down to whisper in her ear, “I’ll just sit in the pews and wait.”

He picks a spot in the back to watch the rehearsal. Katniss is the only bridesmaid, and she dutifully walks down the aisle to take her place beside her mom as Florence and her fiance, the paunchy-looking man from before, practice the vows. His groomsman must be his brother, a younger man with similar features and coloring. The pink-haired woman shrieks about the time and something about schedules, and they hurry through the rehearsal in about 20 minutes.

After, they head to the restaurant where the dinner is taking place. It’s more intimate than he was expecting, since there’s hardly anybody in the wedding party. So it looks like it’s 10 guests, tops, close family and friends.

For once, Peeta is a little unnerved. He’s never had to involve himself so deeply in a fake romance. As if sensing his discomfort, Katniss flashes him a tight, apologetic smile when they’re being seated. She leans toward him. “We can leave early. I can make up an excuse or something—”

But he smiles reassuringly at her, angling his head to press a kiss to her hair, right at the soft skin of her temple. He hears her breath hitch; he only meant the gesture as a cover, aware of the curious eyes of her family and friends on them, but he’s suddenly entranced by her scent, something clean and distinctly her, by the taste of her skin, the mild taste of sweat and flesh on his lips. He has to forcefully stop himself from taking a deep breath to inhale her.

“It’s—” He clears his throat and tries again, murmuring into her ear. “It’s fine. No rush. We just might have to get more innovative with our answers and our story if they start asking more questions.”

She nods, but he can tell she’s distracted when she leans away, sitting up straight in her chair. Her cheeks are touched with pink, and he runs his hand through his hair, suddenly feeling quite flushed himself.

Maybe he should have backed out of the rehearsal, just stuck to the weddings, but he can’t leave her hanging now. He’s a professional. He can be professional.

He and Katniss get similarly grilled by Haymitch about how they met. Peeta endures the questions about what he does for a living, plus new ones about where he’s from, where he went to school. At least those he can answer truthfully.

Mercifully, when he’s satisfied all their questions, they eventually leave Peeta and Katniss to eat their meals in peace. Once her mother starts into a rant about the catering company and some issue with the lamb stew at the reception tomorrow, Katniss shoots Peeta a grateful look.

They’re done by 9, and Katniss drives them back to her place. She practically sags with relief once she pulls into her parking lot, as if she can finally drop the charade safely.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, looking at him nervously. “I didn’t really…I didn’t really think about how complicated this would get. With my family. I feel kind of guilty now. I didn’t think this through.”

He studies her quietly from the passenger seat. “I don’t have to come tomorrow. If you think that would be best—”

She shakes her head adamantly. “No, that would—I think that would be worse, you know? I don’t want to take attention away from my mom’s day, and she’ll definitely wonder where you are, and then I’d have to tell her the truth…” She laughs weakly, her hand falling limp from the steering wheel. “It’s fine. I can handle tomorrow. I just feel bad putting you in such an awkward position.”

His lips twitch with laughter. “I get paid good money to be put in awkward positions, Katniss.”

She laughs again, a little more fully this time, and she shakes her head. “Good point.”

They climb out of her car, and he walks to his car, this time Katniss escorting him. “Thank you,” she tells him sincerely. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Peeta nods. “Of course.” They linger at his car, neither quite making a move. He jiggles his keys in his hand. Is she waiting for him to get in the car, to see him safely off? Probably, but there’s a hesitation in her eyes, which can’t quite meet his. Something so sweetly…vulnerable in her face.

God help him, he can’t resist. He steps toward her, looping his arms around her waist to pull her against him in a hug. If she’s surprised or appalled, she doesn’t show it. Her arms come up to wrap around his shoulders automatically, and she lifts up on her toes just barely to tuck her head against his neck. She presses so tightly against him, he can feel the firm swells of her breasts against his chest. It’s intoxicating, and impossible to fight the instinctual reaction of his groin.

He breathes out a silent sigh and forces himself to release her, just enough, that he can snake a hand up to her face. Gently cupping her jaw, he presses a kiss to her opposite cheek but doesn’t let himself linger, despite the overwhelming urge to. A practiced smile slips into place as he pulls away. “See you tomorrow,” he echoes, and she nods, her eyes glassy, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth. Then he makes himself release her and climb into his car, only risking one glance at her as he drives away. She’s still watching him when he does.

* * *

Peeta’s determined to get his head in the game for Katniss’ mother’s wedding, having agonized all night over his inappropriate thoughts about his client. Touching will be minimal. Flirting will be superficial. His…attraction to her will be seriously tamped down, locked away with all his other past inappropriate crushes. He’s handled these before, all the time. Teachers, his friends’ sisters. In one case, a friend’s really young, hot mother.

He can get through these last two weddings without a hitch, and that will be the end of it.

He doesn’t pick her up from her place this time, since she’s spent the morning with her mother getting ready for the wedding. Instead, he drives straight to the church and picks a spot in the pews toward the back, a spot that offers him a good view of the altar.

When the ceremony starts, Katniss walks out alone, slowly striding down the aisle. She’s dressed in a hunter green, knee-length dress that hugs her chest and waist, and her hair is swept up into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. Christ, every color she wears complements her olive skin better than the last.

She’s fucking gorgeous.

The heat in his belly flares bright, and when she inadvertently makes eye contact with him as she walks by, his lips feel numb when he smiles.

She takes her spot at the altar, where Haymitch, his brother and the minister wait. Florence appears next, but Peeta only spares her a glance before his eyes shift to Katniss up front. That’s where they stay during the rest of the ceremony.

Afterward, she finds him lingering with the guests at the church before she slips away with the wedding party. “You okay?” she asks him quietly, grasping his arm.

He stares down at her, nods faintly. “Yeah. The ceremony was beautiful,” he answers automatically. But he feels dazed by her eyes

She nods in return too. “Okay. I’ve gotta go take photos. I’ll see you at the reception?” He just nods again, offering a smile before she squeezes his arm and is pulled away by the photographer. He waits in the holding room where they’re serving drinks and appetizers while the staff converts the chapel into a reception area. He makes small talk with a few of Katniss’ family members he remembers from the rehearsal, sipping a beer until they’re escorted into the chapel again. He finds the table where he’s sat with Katniss and her new brother-in-law and his wife, plus a couple other family members.

She returns eventually, stealthily sliding into the seat beside him with a brief smile before her mother and her new husband make their grand entrance. Everyone applauds, and Katniss grabs Peeta’s beer to take a long pull of it. His hands freeze mid-clap, and he raises an eyebrow at her.

She answers his unspoken question when she finally puts his bottle down. “I’m starving and disappointingly sober.”

With a smile, he uncovers a small plate of hors d'oeuvres he’d saved from the appetizer hour, pushing it toward her. “Good thing I’m such a thoughtful date.”

Her eyes go wide, and she immediately stuffs a crab puff in her mouth. “Thank you,” she mumbles mid-chew, and he chuckles, taking an idle sip of his beer while she ravenously consumes the pieces of food he selected for her. He can taste her lip balm on the rim. Unconsciously, he licks his lips after. Pomegranate, he thinks.

The bride and groom give a little speech, thanking their guests, then they invite everyone to help themselves to the buffet and bar. Peeta asks if she wants to grab a drink first, and Katniss nods enthusiastically, accepting his hand as he helps her up from her seat and leads her to the open bar. He can’t decide if he thinks it’s weird or not, that two people who met in AA would serve alcohol at their wedding, but he doesn’t ask Katniss about it. It’s only wine and beer, so Katniss gets a glass of red wine, and Peeta orders another Bud Light, since Katniss chugged a third of his.

“It’s a little weird, right?” Katniss murmurs as they move away from the bar, in the direction of the buffet, but they stop to sip their drinks. “The bar, I mean.” Peeta shrugs, tipping his beer back for a swallow. “My mom was concerned. For Haymitch. But Haymitch said he didn’t want to deny the other guests the option just to protect him.”

Peeta considers that. “Are you worried something might happen?”

She shakes her head. “No. He’s been sober five years now. In the time I’ve known him, I haven’t seen him touch a drop of alcohol. It’ll be fine.”

He nods and opens his mouth to say more, but someone cuts him off.

“Peeta?”

He freezes, his eyes narrowing briefly before they widen. Katniss’ face creases in confusion.

That voice—it can’t be…

He turns around, his stomach sinking when his fear is confirmed. “Madge—wow. Hey.”

The tall, slender, blonde woman approaches him with wide eyes, her arm looped around an even taller man’s arm.

“Wait,” Katniss says from behind him. “You two know each other?”

He spins back around to face her, shooting her a contrite look. “Yeah, we, uh…we used to date. In high school.”

Her eyes widen at that. “Seriously?” She shakes her head, stunned. “Peeta—Madge is my best friend. And this is her fiance—my friend. Gale.”

Gale.

Oh. _Oh_. He stares at Katniss, trying to wrap his mind around this new development. So her ex-boyfriend is dating his ex-girlfriend. And he and Katniss are supposed to go to their wedding.

Well, this is certainly a clusterfuck.

He screws a sheepish smile onto his face before turning back to Madge and Gale. “Well. What a small world,” he laughs with a shrug.

Madge still looks slightly perplexed, but she manages a smile before laughing too. “Weird. God. Wow, it’s been years. It’s so great to see you again, Peeta.” She untangles her arm from Gale’s and steps forward to hug him, which Peeta accepts. After, he reaches out to shake Gale’s hand, and the dark-haired man smiles tightly in return.

“Nice to meet you.”

“So how have you been? What have you been up to?” Madge laughs. “I have so many questions! Is this the date you’re bringing to our wedding, Katniss?” At Katniss’ nod, Madge asks, “How did you two meet? You’ve barely told me anything yet!”

Katniss shrugs, sipping her wine before replying. “You know I don’t like to gush about this kind of stuff.”

“Still,” Madge teases. “It must be serious, for you to bring him to your mother’s wedding. You never bring dates around.”

Katniss’ face turns nearly as red as the wine in her glass, and Peeta forces a laugh for her sake. “Well, don’t jinx it, Madge.”

She beams at them, shaking her head. “I still can’t believe this. It’s so weird! But cool.” She asks again how they met, so Peeta runs through their standard answer. “That’s pretty romantic, honestly.”

Peeta just smiles at Katniss, trying to convey to her with his eyes just how fucking crazy all of this is. She hides her smile behind her wine glass.

“Well, I’m ready to get some food,” Gale interjects, nodding toward the buffet line. Madge agrees, and the two of them bid Peeta and Katniss farewell for the time being.

Once they’re gone, Peeta turns his wide eyes on Katniss. “Jesus. That was random as hell. I’m so sorry, Katniss, I had no idea you two knew each other—”

But she laughs, cutting him off. “Are you kidding me? This is hilarious. Our exes are dating each other. We’re going to their wedding in a couple weeks. Together.” She laughs again. “Hey, at least it wasn’t one of your clients, right?”

His body sags a little in relief, relief that she’s not annoyed and relief that she’s right, it wasn’t somebody who knows what he does who recognized him. “Good point,” he murmurs with a chuckle, rubbing his brow before he takes another sip of her beer. “Well. Do you want to get in line for the food?”

She shakes her head. “No. The appetizers filled me up a little. I kind of want to dance. What about you?”

He’s a little surprised, but he agrees. “Sure.” They set their drinks down at their table, then they move to the dance floor where a few other couples are dancing. He pulls her in close, already forgetting his earlier promises to himself to keep things professional. Katniss winds her arms around his neck, so he settles his hands on her hips. Her body just barely grazes his, and she tips her head back some to look up at him. He stares down at her, swallowing thickly.

A small smile curls her lips up. “So…you dated Madge in high school,” she starts, and he nods. “How long?”

“God…” He tries to do the mental calculations. “Almost two years, I think.”

Surprise fills her eyes. “Wow. High school relationships lasted that long?”

He laughs, and they sway together slightly to the music. “I know you might not guess it, based on the line of work I’m in, but I’m a serial monogamist. I mean, we gave each other promises rings and everything.” He shakes his head to himself in amusement. Funny how that worked out.

“Wow,” Katniss says, impressed. “So what happened, why did you two break up?”

He shrugs. “God, it was so long ago now, I can’t really remember. It was probably just a timing thing, both of us getting ready to go off to college.” It feels like a lifetime ago to him. He remembers thinking he loved Madge at the time, and maybe he did in whatever small way someone as immature as they were could, but it all seems silly now.

She hums thoughtfully. “I think I remember her talking about a high school boyfriend at some point. She never mentioned a name, but I think she said you were sweet. Too sweet, I think that’s what it was.”

He snorts and then chuckles. “You’re telling me I got dumped for being too sweet?”

“Yes, sweet like a puppy,” she laughs, and at his sound of disbelief, she insists. “I swear she used those words!”

He just groans, and his face flushes in embarrassment. “Well, that doesn’t sound sexually unappealing at all. I can’t imagine why she would have dumped me.”

Katniss rolls her eyes, still smiling. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sweet,” she says, but she’s looking over his shoulder, not meeting his gaze. “There’s not enough sweet things in this world.”

He considers her words, his eyes skimming her face. Her lips shine slightly with her lip balm, and her gray eyes are framed beautifully by her dark side bangs. There’s a mole on her collarbone, and he fights the urge to brush his thumb back and forth over it. Or his lips.

He clears his throat, reflexively tightening his hold on her waist. He’s not sure if she moves of her own accord, or if his embrace forces her to step into his space more. Their bodies are flush together now, and he stifles his little sigh.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” he asks, and her eyes dart up to his, wary.

“Uh oh.”

“Is that an _uh oh_ no, or an _uh oh_ yes?”

She shakes her head. “It’s an _uh oh_ uh oh. But okay. I reserve the right not to answer though.”

He smiles down at her. “Why don’t you date?”

“Oh.” She looks away, mulling his answer over. “I…” She shrugs. “I guess I just lost interest. Some years ago, after Gale and I had broken up, the few guys I went out with, I just realized…I really wasn’t into them. They just did nothing for me. And I guess I just realized the whole idea of dating in general did nothing for me. I have more fun working and being at home alone, watching Netflix or reading.”

“Fair enough,” he concedes. Her nights at home sound a lot like his when he isn’t working. “I can certainly see the appeal in that.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “But?”

He hesitates, wondering if there really is a but in his statement. Then he shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe my opinion doesn’t count for much, but I kind of pity the male population.” She frowns, confused. “You’re incredible, and you have so much to offer any guy you’d want to date, but they don’t even know what they’re missing. It’s our loss, really.” _Our_? Since when was he including himself in that pool?

“Oh.” Her reply is breathy, and then she laughs, her head tipping back slightly. “You know I’ve literally _paid_ you to say that, right?”

He laughs too. “I mean it. I don’t feel coerced into flattering you. But like I said. I’m sure my opinion doesn’t count for much, but it’s the truth.”

Her cheeks are stained a light pink, and she looks away again. “Thank you. You are…really sweet.”

He smiles wryly. “Like a puppy. I know,” he says, and she laughs before going quiet.

Then she shrugs one shoulder, saying, “I like puppies.” He’s trying not to read too much into her statement, but his stomach warms, something dangerous tightening in his chest. After a moment, Katniss looks up at him again. “What about you?”

“Puppies are cool,” he says, distracted by her eyes. He can see small gold flecks in them at this distance.

She smiles. “No. I mean—you said you haven’t dated anyone in a while. Is that just because of your job, or…?”

He stops to consider this then begins swaying them again. “No. It was easy to start this job because I wasn’t seeing anybody. I guess…well, I guess it’s like what you said. The women I’ve tried dating in the last few years, I just didn’t really connect with. It was better to just be alone than to feel like I was…”

“Settling?” she supplies for him, and he nods.

“Yeah. I never want to be with someone just for the sake of being with someone.”

“Yeah,” she agrees quietly, and in the silence that falls between them then, Peeta gradually realizes they’re no longer dancing to a slow song. In fact, they’re the only couple on the floor dancing to an upbeat Top 40 song.

“Uh…” He squeezes her hips, stepping back slightly. “We should get something to eat.”

Katniss takes in their surroundings and the people watching them and promptly blushes from head to toe. “Good idea.”

They eat, talk to other guests, including Madge and Gale again, and dance some more. He’d rather just dance with Katniss the rest of the night, talking to her, making her laugh, getting to know her more. She’s quickly become the most fascinating person he’s ever met, and he’s completely abandoned all his earlier reservations. Even with a clear and sober head, he feels drunk on her. He couldn’t stop this even if he wanted to.

And he doesn’t want to.

They stay after the end of this reception, after the other guests have left, helping her mother and Haymitch clear out the chapel. Katniss apologizes, insists he can head out if he wants, but he stays to lend a hand.

Florence and Haymitch leave first, Katniss and her family shooing them off to start their honeymoon. A slightly tipsy Florence comes up to Peeta, her fair cheeks flushed and blue eyes glassy, and she clenches his hands in hers. “Peeta, thank you so much for coming to our wedding. And for making my daughter so happy. I’ve never seen her look so vibrant before, at least not in a long time. You’re good for her.” She pats his cheek in a motherly fashion, and he tries not to blanch, his stomach churning. Thankfully Katniss is too far away to have heard her mother’s words.

A sober but flush-faced Haymitch starts to steer Florence away, offering Peeta a firm handshake. He finishes putting away some of the flower arrangements in a box, and Katniss walks up to him with her own box of collected decorations. They exit the church and head to her car, where they stuff the boxes into her trunk.

Katniss shuts her trunk with a sigh, and Peeta smiles at her, sliding his hands into his pants pockets. “You okay to drive?” he asks, and she nods.

“Yeah. I just had the two glasses of wine,” she says, flipping some loose tendrils of hair out of her face. She looks exhausted. “Thank you for all your help today. And for…well, thank you.” At that, she smiles at him, leaning against her driver’s side door.

He shrugs. “It’s been my pleasure, really.” And he means it, really means it.

He should leave right now, but he doesn’t move an inch toward his car. She bites down on her lip, and his body just seems to gravitate to her, moving him a step closer.

“I guess…I won’t see you for a couple weeks,” she says quietly. He doesn’t mistake the regret in her voice. “For Madge and Gale’s wedding. The rehearsal dinner too.”

He nods. Two weeks without seeing her feels like an excruciatingly long time.

“Okay,” she whispers because he’s that close to her, even though there’s nobody else in the parking lot around them. “I guess…we should—well…that’s the end of the date, I mean…”

He draws some air into his lungs, releases it on a rough exhale. Yes. He needs to end the date. “Yeah. I’ll see you in a couple weeks, Katniss.” Despite his better judgment, he leans down to kiss her cheek, his hand lightly grazing her hip.

But she turns into him, just enough, and he stiffens in surprise, his mouth halting just at hers. He can feel her hot breath on his lips, and his wild eyes lift to meet hers, to search. Her pupils are wide, her lids heavy.

She wants him to kiss her. He knows. He’s read enough cues from the opposite sex to know.

He wants to kiss her. So badly.

“I shouldn’t…” he murmurs.

She gives the faintest of head shakes. “Probably not…” she agrees, just as quiet. Still, she doesn’t turn away. If anything, her lips seem to part in just the hint of invitation, and his body pulses with want. With need.

It short circuits any rational thinking. His right hand moves of its own volition, cupping her jaw and pulling her face to his. He crushes his mouth against hers. There’s no pretense, no coy teasing. Her lips are already parted, her tongue meeting his when he sweeps it into her mouth.

He falls apart at the first flick of her tongue, the taste of her igniting every taste bud, every nerve ending in his body, and he groans pitifully before kissing her harder, deeper. He brushes his tongue against hers, almost frantic he can’t taste every part of her fast enough. His body pins her to her car, curving her spine and neck to the door as he looms over her, consumes her. She whimpers, clawing at his shirt, sliding her hands up his chest and shoulders, around to his back, like she’s trying to touch every inch of him.

He’s so hard, he’s aching. But his desperate need to kiss her, to memorize every crevice of her mouth, revel in every sensation her tongue sends through him, overrides any embarrassment, any sensibility that tells him he should back off. But if the way she’s writhing against him, sliding her leg up his thigh, is any indication, she doesn’t really have any objection to the feel of his erection pressed against her.

He’s not sure how long they kiss against her car. A minute, ten. An hour. It’s only when the heaviness in his balls and the throbbing of his dick get too excruciatingly painful that he finally pulls away, just barely so he can catch his breath. They’re both panting hard, their chests heaving. Her lips look bruised, swollen, and slick with their spit; he actually has to wipe the dribble of saliva that snaps between them from his chin, then he swipes his thumb over her bottom lip to do the same for her.

Of course, now that the overpowering need to kiss her has abated, rational thinking floods in to fill the vacuum left in its place. His already knotted stomach twists with dread, and he takes a ragged breath. “Damn,” he whispers, his throat raw. “Shit.” What other expletive can he use? “Fuck.”

She’s just watching him, not speaking. Mortified at his behavior, he tries to push off the car, but his limbs and body feel sluggish, weak, and he winces as his erection rubs against her again. Her eyelashes flutter, her breathing stuttered, and her body gives a small, shuddering lurch. He almost caves entirely, wants to hoist her legs up and grind his dick between her thighs, but with a pained effort, he manages to take a step back.

When he speaks, his voice is hoarse, like he hasn’t spoken in a while. God, had they really been making out for that long? “Katniss…I’m sorry…I…shit, that was—that was—” His head is spinning, and he runs a hand through his hair. Amazing. Hot. _Everything_. “That was so…unprofessional of me. I shouldn’t have…”

“I won’t tell,” she says softly, her voice thin, papery. She touches her fingertips to her lips, momentarily distracted as she traces them—he’s momentarily distracted too, swallowing a groan and with it the urge to follow those fingers with his tongue. She shakes her head, blinking. “It’s okay. I…you didn’t do anything wrong. The date was over, right?”

He stares at her uncertainly. As far as he’s concerned, the date doesn’t end until he leaves. He knows they’ve fucked up. He fucked up. Still, he’s desperate to agree, desperate for some kind of loophole that will abate his conscience right now.

“Right…yeah,” he murmurs, but already his phone is burning a hole in his pocket, waiting with a text from someone at Capitol Tributes checking to ensure his date is over, to ensure he hasn’t gone and done exactly what he just did.

“I’m going to get in my car,” she announces, almost like she’s trying to convince herself to move. Peeta nods gravely, taking another step back, then another, until she’s able to open her door with shaky hands.

“Goodnight,” he mutters, trying to quell the sudden surge of panic at her leaving. He has to let her go, or he knows he’ll do something he’ll really regret.

Katniss just nods as she gets into her car, and this time he’s the one watching her go.

* * *

The next two weeks are torture. Peeta nearly caves multiple times, pulling out his phone to text her, but he manages to wrestle himself out of making a disastrous move.

She doesn’t reach out to him either in that time, and he’s almost convinced she’s going to back out of the rest of their arrangement, but he finally hears from her the night before the rehearsal dinner with a rather formal text:

_The rehearsal is tomorrow at 5, dinner is at 6. If you don’t think you can make the rehearsal, please let me know._

He exhales and furrows his brow. She expects him to back out. He fires off a response:

_I’ll be there. Pick you up at 4:30?_

He waits a few minutes for her response: _Okay, thank you._

He sighs again. One more weekend, and maybe he can extricate himself from this business deal without too many complications.

Except, why does the thought of never seeing Katniss again cut a dull ache through his chest?

* * *

Peeta arrives at her apartment at 4:25 p.m. on Friday. He’s nervous, even more nervous than he was on the first date he ever went on after starting at Capitol Tributes, and he tries to shake his limbs out to release the tension before knocking on her door.

When she opens it, his heart hurdles into his throat like he’s a fucking teenager all over again. Fuck.

Her lips press into a tight, half-hearted smile. “Hi,” she says stiffly, stepping out of her apartment to shut the door behind her. She’s dressed in black skinny jeans and a loose rust-colored tank top, her long hair pulled up into a high ponytail. It’s a much more casual look than he’s used to seeing her in; still, all he can focus on is the curve of her neck, the hint of cleavage revealed by the low neckline of her top.

“Hey,” he finally blurts, when he realizes he hasn’t said anything yet. He smiles when she turns back to him after locking her door, but she ducks his gaze.

“Well…should we…?” she trails off, waving in front of them, and he takes a deep breath.

“Wait. Katniss.” He rakes a hand over his curls. He’s rehearsed this speech many times. “I just…I want to apologize, again, for what I did the last time you and I saw each other. It was extremely unprofessional and inappropriate of me. I won’t betray your trust like that again.”

Her eyes widen imperceptibly, her face flushing, and she clutches her purse against her side. “Oh—I—okay.” Then she shakes her head. “No. Wait. Peeta…it’s really okay. We don’t even have to discuss it. I’m not—it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t take advantage of me, at all. It was my fault too. So I should probably apologize to you.”

“God, no. Don’t apologize to me,” he says quickly. How can he explain this to her, explain this is a possible hazard of his job? The clients getting attached to the companion, mistaking something false for something real? Except…it feels pretty real to him. He clears his throat. “You are…” God, he can feel his heart trying to push its way through his lips. _Don’t say it, Mellark_ _._ “Magnificent.” Dammit. “I want to…I just…can’t,” he finishes lamely, and she chews on her lip, not looking at him, but she eventually nods.

“Of course. I’m not asking anything of you. I understand what this is. And you already—I’ve already told you where I stand on stuff like this.” She meets his eyes and forces a smile. “We need to get going to the rehearsal.”

“Right,” he says, feeling unsettled still, but he leads her to his car anyway.

* * *

Madge and Gale’s rehearsal goes similarly to Katniss’ mother’s rehearsal. Peeta sits in the back row at the venue, watching as the bridesmaids and then the bride walk down the aisle. They go through the vows and the logistics of the ceremony, then they’re off to the restaurant for dinner.

Because the attendees are more friends and relatives of Madge and Gale and not Katniss, they thankfully don’t seem to care who Peeta is, so they’re off the hook from answering any inquiries into their relationship while they eat.

Except one of Madge’s other bridesmaids, her cousin Cashmere, seems to have taken a particular interest in Peeta. She’s sitting across from him at dinner, Katniss to his left, and she has the kind of gleam in her eye he’s become all too familiar with. Fuck.

“So what do you do, Peeta?” she asks, sipping her wine.

He sighs inwardly but smiles politely. “I work in an art gallery,” he answers automatically. He’s relieved when her eyes don’t spark with any hint of interest.

“What does that mean exactly?” she asks, her brow pinching together just barely.

Peeta glances at Katniss from the corner of his eye, wondering if she’s paying attention at all. She’s cutting into her chicken breast, not acknowledging him or Cashmere.

“I paint. And try to sell what I create.”

At that, Cashmere’s face does brighten, and he drinks from his water to hide his disappointment. “Oh, you’re an artist? You must be incredible then, to be able to sell your paintings.”

He laughs drolly, shaking his head as he puts his glass of water back down. “ _Try_ was the operative word in that sentence. It’s really not good money,” he adds, hoping that’s the real driving force behind her interest, but she just keeps smiling coyly at him.

“I’m sure you’re just being modest,” she purrs, bracing her elbows on the table as she leans forward. “I bet you’re good at a lot of things.”

Oh holy fuck, she is bold. His eyes dart to Katniss again, whose back seems stiffer. Her lips are downturned in a scowl, but her face is turned away slightly, as if she’s listening to the conversation on her left. He’s not sure what to do. He wants to put his arm around her, to assert his role as Katniss’ date, to subtly let Cashmere know to back off, but he’s afraid to breach whatever walls Katniss has put up between them in the past two weeks. Walls they both put up, he supposes. But she’s been particularly reserved, keeping a physical distance between them, and he’s not sure how comfortable she is with any sort of touch or contact now.

He really fucked this all up.

Stifling a sigh, he forces another smile at Cashmere, but this time it’s hard, isn’t reflected in his eyes. “Nope, I’m pretty terrible at most things,” he says, sure she’ll understand now he has no interest in her flirting.

But she just laughs, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “Modest and funny. You’re just the total package, aren’t you?”

_Fuck. Me._

He endures her shameless flirting for the rest of dinner, attempting to engage Katniss in conversation so he can shut Cashmere down, but unlike the woman across from him, Katniss seems uninterested in anything he has to say. Her responses are listless, short, and she barely looks him in the eyes when he asks her a question. Why is she okay with this? Even if it’s pretend, she should still want to claw this woman’s eyes out, right?

Engaging her tonight is like pulling teeth. He doesn’t know what to do.

Mercifully, the dinner only lasts a couple hours, and Peeta and Katniss make their escape to the parking lot. She surprises him when she stops a few feet away from the car, and he turns back to her before he can get in the driver’s side. “What’s up?”

She tucks some loose hair behind her ear. “I’m actually not going back home tonight. Madge wanted me to stay over so I can help her get ready in the morning, so I’m catching a ride with her.”

“Oh.” He reaches into his pocket and jingles his keys anxiously, unsure what to say or do now. “Okay. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. I won’t be picking you up for the wedding, I guess?” She shakes her head, and he sighs inwardly, defeated. His stomach has turned sour, the food sitting heavily in his gut. “Okay. See you tomorrow, Katniss.”

He pulls his keys out to unlock his car, but she finally speaks.

“I can get her number for you. If you want.”

His car doors unlock with a beep when he hits the fob, and he glances over the car at her, confused. “What?”

“Cashmere. If you want her number, I can pass it along.”

His brow furrows even farther. What the hell? “I…why would I want her number?”

Katniss shrugs. “She’s pretty. She was really into you. After our arrangement is off, I can let everyone know we’ve broken up. Then you’ll be free to pursue her, if that’s what you want.”

Christ…is she serious? Peeta slowly slides his keys back into his pocket, and he walks back around the car toward her. “I don’t want her number. I can’t think of anything more unprofessional—” _Besides dry-humping you against your car._ “I don’t want to pursue her.”

Again, Katniss shrugs, her gaze turned somewhere into the distance, not at him. “It’s fine if you do, of course. I thought maybe you two were flirting at dinner—”

“Katniss,” he interrupts fiercely. “I was definitely not flirting with her. One, I have no interest in her. Two, I would never disrespect you like that. Ever. Do you understand that? I’m here for _you_. You alone. I’m not looking at other women. Shit, I don’t care if this year’s Sports Illustrated cover model walked into that restaurant tonight, I only have eyes for _you_.”

“Because I’m paying you,” she adds, her voice flat, but her eyes flash with uncertainty. Her words pull him up short abruptly, and his mouth moves wordlessly for a moment.

“…Right,” he finally says, his voice hollow. Right? He hadn’t been thinking about their arrangement at all. God, this is a mess.

“I’m not jealous,” she says suddenly, folding her arms over her chest. “I just…wanted you to know you can do anything you want after tomorrow.”

He stares at her again, completely mystified by this woman in front of him. Finally, he smiles tiredly at her and runs his hand through his hair. “And I just want to take you to this wedding tomorrow. Okay?”

She nods, letting her arms drop to her sides. “See you tomorrow,” she says, and despite the overwhelming urge to hug her, to touch her, Peeta makes himself get into his car and drive away.

* * *

It’s strange watching his high school girlfriend say “I do” to another man. As Peeta watches Madge and Gale exchange rings from his seat in the audience, he wonders how the hell he ended up here.

Stranger still is how much he’d rather be watching Katniss. She’s standing off to the side, right behind Madge, simply holding her bouquet, and still, his eyes are riveted to her. Her hair is completely down in luxurious, loose, silky-looking waves, and her olive skin looks as delectable as caramel against the dark gray dress. If he were closer, he could only imagine what the color of the material is doing to her gray eyes.

She’s beautiful. To him, she’s even more radiant than the bride.

And that’s how he knows he’s a goner.

When the ceremony’s over, Katniss walks down the aisle with the best man, one of Gale’s brothers, and for the first time since Peeta arrived, she makes eye contact with him. She offers him a ghost of a smile, but it’s genuine at least, and it makes his heart rate tick up.

He passes the time at the reception waiting for Katniss and the rest of the wedding party to make their entrance by chatting idly with other guests. Katniss’ mother and her husband are there, too; Peeta learns that Katniss and Gale had grown up together, and their families are pretty close.

He’s fascinated by every little new facet he learns about her.

Anxiety is coursing through him by the time she arrives, released from the duty of wedding photos, and she sits down beside him at their table. They’re seated with a couple other bridesmaids and their dates, but thankfully none one of them is Cashmere.

Wetting his lips, Peeta leans closer to Katniss so she can hear him. “You look so beautiful.”

She lifts her eyes to him, and his heart stops. Just like he suspected; her eyes are ethereal. She searches his face and then eventually she smiles. Wider than before, her top teeth digging into the bottom lip just slightly. “Thank you. You look very handsome yourself.”

And then she leans toward him to kiss him, in the space between his jaw and the corner of his mouth. Nerves and excitement and relief twist in his stomach, and he can’t help the wide grin that spreads across his face. In return he squeezes her arm and takes her hand, accepting the invitation to touch her again, finally.

But he has to let go a moment later, wanting to get her a drink. “Something from the bar?” he offers, and she nods.

“Surprise me,” she says with a shrug, and he gets up to do just that, returning a few minutes later with a beer for himself and a vodka tonic for her.

She smiles her gratitude, and he taps his beer bottle to her glass in cheers, then they both take large gulps from their drinks. They’re quiet for a moment until Peeta finds something to say. “This is possibly the weirdest date a client has ever taken me on,” he tells her, low enough so the other guests can’t overhear. Katniss raises her eyebrow. “Watching my ex-girlfriend vow her everlasting love to another man. Yeah, this takes the cake.”

She laughs. The sound thrills him. “Well, you’re welcome. Something to remember me by, I guess.”

He watches her face carefully, a smile still teasing his lips, and he shakes his head. “I won’t need any help remembering you, Katniss,” he murmurs, and her smile slips slightly, wistfulness veiling her eyes. But she sips her drink again and gives him another smile.

“It wasn’t so bad for me,” she says suddenly, thoughtfully, swirling the ice in her drink. “I loved Gale at one point. I mean, I still do. He’s my oldest friend. I guess I should have felt something up there. But we just weren’t good together. It never felt like…” she trails off, wrinkling her nose, but then she smiles and shrugs, glancing at Peeta. “Anyway. I don’t even really remember the ceremony. I was kind of distracted.”

“By what?”

Her smile turns coy, which stirs something low in his gut. “Thinking about how hot my date looks in his tux.”

Peeta blushes, actually blushes, the heat spreading down into his chest and stomach. Katniss’ face turns a shade of red too, but she’s still smiling shyly, tracing her finger around the rim of her glass. She’s flirting with him. This isn’t forced niceties or easy banter like before, this is something different entirely. Something that promises more.

He touches her face, cradling her jaw as he brushes his thumb back and forth over her soft cheek. He grazes the corner of her mouth, smoothing the delicate skin there, and he smiles at her, a small one that tugs the left corner of his mouth into a lopsided grin.

He probably would have kissed her right then if a server hadn’t interrupted the moment, setting down two plates of food in front of them. They both startle, and Peeta pulls his hand away, suddenly mindful of the other people at their table. He clears his throat, and Katniss busies herself with laying a napkin in her lap.

“I hope you’re okay with beef,” she says, a little sheepishly. “I had to choose our dinner a few weeks ago, and I just took a guess.”

“This is perfect,” he assures her, mimicking her actions with his own napkin.

They eat, talking sporadically with each other and their other table guests. They listen to speeches, Katniss having to give one herself as the maid of honor, watch the bride and groom dance, and then the father-daughter dance and the mother-son dance. And after they finish their drinks, they head out to the dance floor themselves.

Peeta is pleasantly surprised when Katniss wants to dance to the fast songs too. Whatever reservations she had before are gone completely; they jump around and laugh, spinning, shaking their hips and shoulders in some laughable attempt at rhythm. She kicks off her heels at some point and dances barefoot, and she moves into his space some more, her lithe body sliding up against his in an unabashedly intimate way. His blood pumps hard and fast through his veins as their hips roll together. He grows hard, and he knows she has to feel it, but she just grinds her ass into his pelvis before turning to slither up against him, her own pelvis pressed to his.

He doesn’t even care about the other people on the dance floor, what kind of show they’re giving the other guests. He just wraps his arms around her, nuzzling the side of her face, her neck, running his fingers through her hair.

Their skin is damp with sweat, and they’re both panting from the physical exertion, probably from something more too. Peeta had to abandon his tux jacket a while ago, his dress shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Katniss’ face is flushed, and her eyes sparkle when she leans back in his embrace to look at his face. They just stare at each other for a moment, their bodies still moving mindlessly to the beat, and then Katniss laughs airily.

“I need another drink.”

With a grin, he nods. She runs her hands up his chest before stepping away, and he follows her to the bar, though he can’t keep his hands off her, touching her arms, her hips. While they order their drinks, he stands behind her, sweeping her hair over one shoulder so he can skim his fingers across her neck and shoulders. She leans back into him, arching her ass into his groin, and he sighs against the crown of her head, only reluctantly letting her go so he can accept his beer and put a tip in the jar.

They mingle, drinking their beverages and talking with her friends, with Madge and Gale. Katniss stays close to him, tucked under his arm. She seems intent on constantly touching him, too.

When they’ve had enough talking, they dance some more. Pressed up against her, he wants to kiss her so badly, but he doesn’t. He tries not to think about the looming expiration of their date, and their arrangement, but the thought is there, clouding the back of his mind with an inexplicable sense of dread.

God, he doesn’t want to let her go, ever. How did she root herself so deeply under his skin in such a short amount of time?

He’s running out of time now. The reception winds down around 10, as all the remaining guests line up outside with sparklers to send the couple off on the start of their honeymoon. Inside, the lights are on and the music’s stopped and the bartender is closing up the bar. Again, Peeta stays to help Katniss and the rest of the wedding party clean up.

Once they’re finished, Peeta walks Katniss out to the parking lot. “Did you drive your car here?” he asks, hoping this isn’t where he has to tell her goodbye.

Thankfully, she shakes her head. “No, I got a lift with one of the other girls. My car is still at home. Would you mind driving me back there?”

“Not at all,” he says eagerly, leading her to his car. He opens the door for her, his hand lingering between her shoulder blades as she leans down to climb inside.

The drive to her place is short, way too short, and they fill up the time with bland comments about the wedding and the reception. Peeta doesn’t want to talk about the inevitable conclusion to their arrangement, and Katniss doesn’t bring it up, but there’s the awareness of it lurking under the surface of their strained, superficial conversation.

After parking, Peeta walks her to her apartment door. Her heels dangle limply from her fingers, and his hands are shoved into the pockets of his pants, flexing anxiously around his phone and his keys. At her door, she turns to him and smiles wanly. He returns it, but it doesn’t reach his eyes either.

“Well…thank you for this whole summer, Peeta. You were…a godsend, basically.” She laughs lightly, and he cocks a small, crooked smile at her, bracing his shoulder against the doorway.

“It was my pleasure, Katniss. Honestly.” He hopes she can see how sincerely he means that.

Her smile quirks, and she averts her eyes, rubbing her forearm. “I guess this is goodnight. I don’t really know how to end it since this is the last time.” Her laugh is weak and awkward, and his smile turns sad.

“It just ends like any other night,” he says regretfully, and she nods, tucking her hair behind her ear. His eyes linger at that spot, and he sends out a silent farewell to the skin there he’ll never get to kiss.

There’s so much skin he’ll never get to kiss.

He curses himself mentally when his stomach twists painfully at the realization. Why is he torturing himself?

“Well. Goodnight,” she finally murmurs, but the goodbye is still so loud somehow. He stifles a wince and nods.

“Goodnight,” he echoes, unable to hedge the sadness out of his voice this time. He reaches out to hug her, one last time, and she leans into him. Her arms wind around his neck, and his pull her tight against him. His face immediately nuzzles against the side of her neck, and she buries hers in the crook of his, pushing up on tip-toe.

He holds her for a while, breathing her in. She doesn’t seem to want to let him go either. When his lips inadvertently graze her skin, she shudders and presses more firmly against him. He swallows a groan but sighs; he wants to part his lips more, to trace his tongue along the sinews of her neck, up to her jaw, to her ear, or down to her collarbone, to her breasts, but he refrains. Somehow. He lets his hand rub circles on the small of her back, dragging his fingers along the low back hemline where he can just touch her soft skin.

His phone vibrates ominously in his pocket, and he uses the warning as the impetus to finally release her. It’s the hardest thing he has to do, but he steps back, his hands dragging down to her hips. She looks up at him, her eyes hooded but sad, her cheeks flushed. He forces a smile.

“Bye,” he whispers, and her throat works with her hard swallow, but she nods. Dropping her hands from his shoulders, she clutches her heels to her chest while she gets her keys out of her clutch. He keeps his hands to himself but waits for her to unlock the door and slip inside. With one last lingering look, she shuts her door.

His forehead bumps against the doorframe as he drops his head down, and he groans pitifully to himself. With his eyes shut, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks his screen, then he looks down to read it.

Finnick: _How’d the date go?_

He tells his coworker what he wants to hear. _Good. Just dropped her off. Heading home now._

But he doesn’t, not yet. He can’t seem to lift his head from the doorframe. All he can think about is Katniss on the other side. Why did he let her go? Why did he have to meet such an amazing woman through an escort service, where she’s effectively forbidden to him?

But…he’s not her escort anymore. Shit, why didn’t he at least see if she would be interested in a real date with him? Long shot as it probably is. “Dammit,” he swears under his breath, and he’s debating whether he should knock on her door when it swings open.

His head jerks up, and he meets Katniss’s face with his wide-eyed stare. She’s on the phone, her hand pressing it tightly against the side of her face.

“Yes. He just left,” she says breathlessly, staring at him. Right now, her gray eyes are black. “Yes. I will. Thank you so much. Goodnight.”

She ends the call, her hand dropping to her side, and for a moment they just continue to stare at each other. He can hear her heavy, quick breaths—or maybe they’re his own, but it doesn’t matter because the next second he’s crashing through her doorway, crushing his lips against hers.

Her phone clatters to the floor, and her now-empty hands snap to his shoulders, his head, curling through his hair as her tongue meets his eagerly. He groans, wants to crumble at the taste of her again, but he just drags his hands down her sides to her hips and her thighs, hooking them under her ass so he can hoist her into the air.

Her brief gasp of surprise separates their lips, but then she’s kissing him again, desperately, twining her arms around his neck and hugging her thighs firmly against his sides. Peeta takes deep pulls of her mouth, stroking her tongue, barely giving her the chance to reciprocate because he’s so desperate to taste her. He stumbles across her living room blindly, slamming her back against a wall. He doesn’t mean to, but he uses the opportunity to push her dress up to her hips so her thighs are no longer constricted by the material; now he can bear down in the cradle of her thighs completely, and he can feel her heat through her panties and his shirt.

“Oh fuck,” he mumbles against her mouth, around her tongue, and she grinds out a noise of agreement, still kissing him. Her hands cup the sides of his face, holding him in place, and his head tips back so she can take over, sucking on his tongue, biting and tugging at his lips.

“We can go to the bedroom,” she pants, licking the seam of his lips. He groans. “I mean, do you want to?”

“God, yes,” he breathes out, lifting her off the wall. He carries her into her room when he narrows their destination down. She flips the light on, and he drops down onto the bed with her, lifting up on his knees so they don’t bump noses. But then he dives back in for another bruising kiss, brushing his tongue against hers. Her fingers work his tie loose, and she yanks it over his head. He sits up to hastily unbutton his shirt, and Katniss leans up to help him, pulling the material out of his waistband, and they work in sync to pull and push it off his shoulders and arms.

She drags her fingers down his abdomen, causing his muscles to flinch with his sharp inhale. Then she’s pressing wet kisses to his chest, his shoulders, his nipples, trying to taste everything she can. He sucks in air through his teeth again, his dick hard and straining against the material of his pants.

He has to push her back down to the bed, his hand firm on her chest. She arches up, squirming between his legs, so he slides his hands underneath her, pulling on the zipper. He pulls the dress down her body, and she practically wriggles out of it until she can kick it off her feet. Then he just stares at her, taking in the sight beneath him.

Her black hair is fanned out around her head like a dark storm cloud, her gray eyes the thunder and lightning gathering beneath it. Her cheeks and lips and chest are red, and there’s beautiful, supple skin—so much skin left bare by the black strapless bra and tiny black panties.

God help him.

He leans down to kiss every inch of her skin, starting with that spot by her ear he was coveting before. She moans softly as he kisses down her chest, his tongue snaking out to taste her. He works his hands under her so he can unclasp her bra, baring her breasts to him. He drinks her in, the dusky nipples tight and straining upward for his mouth. When he takes one into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it, she cries out and threads her fingers through his hair.

His hand cups her other breast, kneading it firmly, and he circles his thumb over the hardened bud to mimic his tongue on the other nipple until she’s writhing and clawing at him with throaty whimpers.

He rubs his cock through his pants to relieve it some, the flesh swelling painfully, but he releases her breasts so he can kiss her belly, her ribs, looping his fingers around her panties and pulling them down her hips. She shimmies out of them, and they join her dress on the floor as he sits up to take her in fully.

She’s a fucking vision. “You’re so perfect,” he tells her in awe, spreading her legs around him and steepling them so she’s open for him.

Her whole body seems to blush, and he just wants to stare at her all night. Her small, perky breasts. The firm swoop of her stomach. The shorn thatch of black hair at the apex of her thighs, and the glistening, swollen lips beneath it.

He has to touch her; his fingers graze her folds, and she moans. He hunches over her, angling his hand between her thighs so he can rub her better, trailing his fingertips up and down her lips, slickening them with her arousal. He doesn’t touch her clit until she’s begging him with breathy mewls, and when he finally does, she jerks against him, latching onto his arms. He watches her face, seeing what she likes best as he strokes her clit languidly, then works it in tight, faster circles. Her cheeks are flushed a deep ruddy color, and she spreads herself wider for him, bucking her hips into his hand as he works her to orgasm.

She’s so wet, his fingers are coated. The slick sounds of his hand moving between her thighs are the only sounds in the room other than her moans and his labored breathing. God, he can’t wait to be inside her, but he needs her to come first, wants to see her fall apart. Still, he pushes two fingers inside her just to feel her, surprised when she shouts suddenly, her walls clamping down around his fingers.

Her walls flutter and pulse, and her nails cut into his skin as her orgasm seizes her. He watches her face as she comes, pumping her quickly, deeply until she’s done quaking.

“Jesus,” he breathes, reluctant to pull his fingers out, but when he does, he rubs her again, pleased when her body gives another shudder.

Her eyes are glassy, and she looks embarrassed. “It’s been a while,” she says meekly in explanation, and she pushes on his shoulders. “Just—can you get your pants off already?”

She doesn’t have to ask twice. Peeta scoots to the edge of the bed so he can stand and unfasten his pants, dropping them to the ground. He crawls back onto the bed then hooks his thumb into his boxer-briefs, pushing them down past his cock. Her eyes widen, fixated between his legs.

“Oh my god, yeah,” she croaks as he crawls on top of her, kicking his underwear all the way down and off his feet. “Let’s do this.”

He cracks a grin, swelling with excitement. He’s surprised again when she sits up on her elbows to kiss him hungrily, scratching her nails through his hair, down his neck. It makes him shiver.

“I have condoms,” she tells him, her lips brushing against his, and then she’s twisting onto her side to root through her nightstand drawer. After a frantic minute, she pulls out a condom and looks at him. “I don’t know how old these are, they might not be very effective. It’s been—it’s been a long time since I’ve had to use them.”

“Me too,” he admits, pretty sure he’s going to embarrass himself by coming the second he’s inside her.

“I’m on birth control too,” she adds, hurriedly ripping the condom open.

“I’m clean,” he assures her. “I mean, I haven’t had sex in a year or so, but we get tested every six months at Capitol Tributes as a safety concern. Not that I—I’ve never, with a client, you know—”

“I trust you,” she tells him, her voice urgent, and christ, she probably couldn’t have made him any harder than if she’d told him she wanted to suck his dick. He hisses through his teeth when she rolls the condom down his shaft, and he pinches the reservoir tip while she secures the condom around the base of his cock, then she’s surging up against him for hungry, greedy kisses, pulling down on his hips to urge him on. “Please, fuck me already.”

He was wrong before about not getting any harder. His dick is throbbing now, and he groans as he pushes forward, sinking into her halfway, trying to ease her walls open, before he pulls out some and then pushes in all the way. Her pussy tightens around him, and she moans, a sharp, belly-deep moan as he stretches her. He rolls his hips so his next thrust into her is slow, measured, and Katniss spreads her thighs open before pressing them into his sides, undulating her hips against his.

“ _God_ , Peeta, god,” she huffs, her eyes shiny, and he groans, wanting to both revel in the feel of her and fuck her hard into the mattress without mercy.

“You feel fucking amazing,” he grunts, pushing up onto his forearms for leverage as his hips pump into hers, a little faster. She gasps, throwing her head back, and she reaches down to grab his ass, spurring him on.

“Yeah, like that,” she encourages, breathing quickly, with an arch of her back, a revolution of her hips, so he does just that. Fucks her harder, driving her into the bed. He has to sit up and brace himself on his hands on each side of her head, careful not to tug her hair. His hips thrust into her faster, his cock sliding in and out of her. He can watch it from this angle, balanced on his knees. The condom is slick, shiny. She’s impossibly wet, like the friction of his cock against her walls does little to use up her natural lubrication.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he marvels, panting harder as he gets even more excited. The sound of their bodies, of him fucking her, christ, the _sound_ drives him wild.

She’s moaning, only a little louder than the slapping reverberations of his thighs against her ass. “I feel like I’ve been wet for you for the last month.” She’s wanted this as much as he has. He groans pathetically at the admission, his balls tightening, pulling into his body. Fuck, he’s going to come too soon, it can’t end like this.

He reaches down to grab his cock, squeezing hard around the base to delay the rising orgasm, and he slows his thrusts, pulling out until just his head is parting her lips.

“I want to taste you,” he demands huskily, because he needs to slow down, but god, he needs to feel her on his tongue too, needs to know what it’s like when she falls apart under his mouth.

Her eyes widen and glaze over, and she nods eagerly, her thighs already falling open for him.

“Please,” she begs, her hands threading through his hair as he positions himself between her legs. He hooks his arms around her hips and jerks her roughly to the edge of the bed, kneeling down on the floor, and then he lowers his mouth to lap at her. His tongue glides through her swollen, pink lips, gathering the pearls of her arousal and swallowing them hungrily. Despite the lingering latex taste, she’s musky and tangy and so fucking addicting he’s sure he could feast between her thighs forever.

Katniss moans and nearly jackknifes off the bed, her hands wrenching tightly in his hair. “Oh god!” she whimpers, and when he flicks her ciltoris with his tongue, she arches toward him, her thighs falling open completely on the bed. “Shit—Peeta—keep doing that!” Her command is practically a squeal as he twirls his tongue in tight strokes, rubbing the swollen bud firmly. She squirms frantically when he stops to taste her again, fucking her with his tongue with deep, leisurely thrusts inside her, then he slips two fingers between her folds so he can suck at her clit.

“Oh god, I’m gonna come, please, I’m gonna come,” she chants, and he can feel the muscles in her thighs quivering just under her skin. He sucks harder, pumping and curling his fingers inside her, and when his teeth scrape her clit, her body bows, and her thighs clamp shut around his head. Her cries are unintelligible, broken only by her gasping inhales, and as she comes, he can feel her pulsing against his tongue, around his fingers. He tastes her again, licking the seam of her sex, making her shudder all over again, and then he pulls away, managing to drag her dead weight farther up the mattress so he can stretch out with her.

“Turn around,” he tells her, something primal taking over. He helps her onto her knees once she’s managed to twist onto her stomach, hiking her hips up so her ass is before him. He pushes her shoulders down to the mattress with zero protest from Katniss, and then he pushes back inside her, pulling on her shoulder with a sharp thrust so his hips meet her ass with a loud, satisfying _smack_.

She groans, muffling the sound in the mattress, and once he’s sure she’s adjusted to the intrusion again, he starts pounding into her. Her pussy is so tight and hot, it makes his spine curl and his jaw tighten from the pleasure of his cock sliding into the velvety nirvana between her thighs.

He’s pounding her so hard and so fast, he actually knocks her legs out from under her. Her knees have spread so far apart, she’s practically flush with the bed. She can’t be comfortable, even though she hasn’t complained; her face is buried in the mattress, the sheets nearly swallowing her cries every time his hips slam into hers. He pauses to pull one of her legs out from under her, keeping her other knee pinned out to her side, then he stretches out on top of her, grinding against her ass, feeling her walls squeeze around his cock.

“You okay?” he asks, only thrusting into her shallowly as he catches his breath. She turns her head to suck in some air; her eyes are still clenched shut, her cheeks red, and he feels the tiny revolutions of her hips around him, her ass rubbing against his pelvis.

“Yeah,” she pants. “You feel so good.”

He groans softly in the soft skin between her shoulder blades, pulling out of her farther, but his thrust back into her is slow, deep. “How good?” he begs, needing to hear her voice.

“So good. Don’t stop,” she moans.

His next groan is louder, pained, it’s almost a growl, and somehow his cock swells even bigger inside her. Bracketing her ribs with his hands, he begins a quick, steady pace, drilling her into the mattress with hard, punishing strokes. He can feel his orgasm building, his balls pulling close to his body. That tingly, static-y sensation starts low in his spine, racing up to the base of his skull, and his skin flushes hot, damp with sweat.

“Fuck, I’m coming, Katniss,” he says through gritted teeth, and she arches back against him in response. He feels her pussy tug on his cock, and he loses it, pumping into her a few more times before he goes still. With a few gasping breaths, he comes and pulsates inside her, the pleasure washing through him, making his eyes roll back. After a few spurts into the condom, Peeta rocks into her a couple more times before his body sags, ready to give out, but he manages to pull out of her and climb off to her side, collapsing on his back.

He takes a minute to catch his breath, and then he looks over at Katniss, who’s watching him with unfocused eyes, breathing shallowly. He offers an exhausted smile, and she laughs hoarsely, pushing up off the mattress so she can roll over too.

“God,” she groans, wincing as she stretches out her hips before letting her legs drop to the mattress. “I feel thoroughly fucked.”

He laughs gruffly, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Yeah. I don’t want to move, but…” He rolls the condom off and climbs off the bed. “Bathroom?”

She points to a door across the room, and he goes in there to throw out the condom. When he returns to the bedroom, Katniss is sitting up, the sheet pulled up to shield her naked body. Her hair is beautifully disheveled, her gray eyes shining at him, and she looks shy now. He smiles at her and sits down, trying to stamp out the worries niggling at the back of his mind. He’s trying to figure out what to say next when she speaks first.

“You can stay. If you want,” she says softly. “I mean…you don’t have to rush out, unless you think…you need to.”

He swallows, his smile slipping slightly when he thinks about his job. And the repercussions and— he pushes the thought away for now. He can think about it tomorrow. Right now, this beautiful woman is asking him to stay.

He nods, lying back down. “Yeah, I can stay.”

* * *

Peeta wakes up to a delicious wet heat around his cock, a gentle suction sensation that pulls a deep groan from his chest before he can even open his eyes. When he looks down, he’s greeted with the incredible sight of Katniss bent over him, her black hair spilling around his thighs as his cock disappears between her lips, repeatedly.

She glances up at him, and his balls tighten, her gray eyes sparking beneath the fringe of her dark lashes. He gives an involuntary thrust up into her mouth with a gasp, his hand shooting out to tangle in her tresses, and he tugs at the roots slightly to ease her back. “Shit—sorry,” he groans, hoping he didn’t just choke her. “God, what are you doing?”

But she keeps sucking him, her cheeks hollowing, and he feels her tongue laving the underside of his cock, swirling around the tip and the ridge every time she pulls up. She wraps her hand around the thick root of his cock and pumps it in time with her mouth as she works him to his peak, his shaft becoming slick with her saliva and his precum.

His abdomen muscles clench and quiver, and he breathes shakily, still trying to shake off the fog of sleep. The calming fuzz veiling his brain combined with the delicious pleasure coursing through him makes him feel delirious, and if it weren’t for the tangible feel of her hair in his hand, he’d probably think he was still asleep and dreaming.

“Katniss,” he groans, cradling the back of her head so he can push up into her mouth, just barely. She hums in response, meeting his eyes again, and he fights back the overwhelming need to come that rears through him. “You—fuck, you feel good, but you’re gonna make me come if you keep going.”

She squeezes his cock with her hand and lets him slip from her mouth, her lips dragging and pursing around the pink head wetly before she fully releases him. He sighs, in both contentment and disappointment, and he watches her lean over to the nightstand to grab another condom.

He just continues to stare at her with awe as she tears it open and rolls it down his shaft. When she hovers over him, pushing up on her knees to position him between her legs, he reflexively grabs her thighs to steady her. As she sinks down on to him, his fingers dig into her firm flesh, and he hisses out a moan, feeling her surround him completely.

Katniss’ breasts heave with a deep sigh, and she squirms on top of him for a moment until she’s comfortable, then she starts moving. Just slow, languid rolls of her hips. There’s something reverent about this time, no frenzy, no desperation, just a soft _good morning_. They don’t talk, they just exchange quiet, quickened breaths and moans and heated gazes, until Katniss picks up her pace, grinding down against his cock.

“Oh,” she gasps and does it again, and again, faster. He groans low in his chest as he watches her get herself off using his dick, the sight of her breasts swaying and the feel of her increasingly wet pussy around him rapidly feeding his own impending orgasm. He touches her breasts, kneading them, tugging at the hard nipples.

When she comes a moment later, her back bowing forward slightly, her walls fluttering around his cock, he’s surprised by the triggering of his own climax. He thrusts up into her roughly a few times to milk it out of him, and then he presses down into the mattress and the pillow with a tortured grunt, closing his eyes. Katniss rocks on top of him very minimally until he’s done, and then she climbs off him to burrow at his side.

“Jesus,” he finally says, his voice scratchy, and he laughs, rubbing at his eyes. “Good morning.”

Katniss hums dreamily, stretching her legs out. “Sorry. I woke up and saw you sleeping so peacefully. I couldn’t resist. Didn’t know how many more opportunities I’d get to do that.”

Her words sour him immediately as if she’d just dumped cold water on him, and his stomach sinks. Rankled, he frowns and sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to plant his bare feet on the floor. He yanks the condom off. “Figured you’d get your money’s worth?” he asks, and immediately he regrets the harshness of his accusation.

Katniss’ face pales, her eyes widening, and she sits up too. “What? No, that’s not…that’s not what I meant,” she says, pulling a pillow into her lap to cover her body.

With an exhausted sigh, he stands up to throw away the condom. When he comes back, he looks at her in her bed, curled in around herself. His regret is suffocating. “God. That was unfair of me to say. Katniss, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” She just sucked his dick, and he bites her head off in thanks. Christ, he’s an asshole.

She’s quiet, refusing to meet his eyes, and he runs a hand through his hair before roughly dragging it down his face. Carefully, he sits back down on the edge of her bed.

Finally, she speaks, her tone brittle. “Is that what you think all this was? I mean, is that what it was to you? Did you only sleep with me because I paid you?”

“No!” He twists to face her more, lifting his knee up onto the bed. He pleads with her. “No, god no, it’s not like that at all. I like you so much, Katniss.”

Her lips are twisted down in a scowl, her neck flushed. “But that’s what happened, isn’t it? I’ve been giving you money, and we just slept together. I just paid for sex,” she says accusingly, shaking her head in disbelief, though if she’s more upset with him or herself, he can’t tell. “God, it wouldn’t have been any seedier if I’d just left you some money on the nightstand afterward.”

Peeta swallows thickly, closing his eyes to quell the rising panic before he speaks again. “You’re making it sound like I’m some kind of whore,” he mutters, looking at her. She clutches the pillow tighter to her chest and looks away petulantly. “That’s not what this was. _Is_. That’s not what this is, between you and I. You paid for the dates. That’s it. What happened after, at the end, is…something completely different. Right?”

She finally looks at him over the edge of her pillow. “And what is it between us?” she asks warily, and he licks his lips. Feeling a little too exposed, Peeta shifts on the bed so he can pull the covers over his lap. Trying to have a serious conversation with his flaccid dick on display is pretty demoralizing.

“I told you. I like you. A lot. I’m interested in you beyond our business arrangement. I wanted to ask you out on a date, last night, before this whole thing. A real date. Not something set up by Capitol Tributes. Just you and I.”

“I don’t date,” she says automatically, then she shakes her head, brushing some hair out of her face, and she rubs her forehead, distraught. “I mean…you’re still an escort, Peeta. I can’t…you already know I can’t deal with that, not in a…relationship. I’ve probably already gotten you in trouble as it is…”

“I’ll quit,” he answers quickly, surprising both of them. But now that he’s said it, it feels right.

“What? No—I’m not asking you to do that—”

“I know, that’s why I’m offering,” he says with determination. He would, he’d quit for her. He could never continue being an escort while actually dating anyone, but especially her. He’s not sure he can even look at another woman again. She’s ruined him.

Katniss sighs, exasperated, flustered. “You can’t just quit your job for me, that’s insane.”

“I can get another job,” he says, unconcerned. Capitol Tributes is good money, but it was just an easy solution to his problem at the time. He has other options. “I can work at a bakery. I grew up working in one, I’m sure there’s a number of bakeries in this town I could try.”

She stares at him, doubt still etched into the crease between her eyebrows. “I don’t even know if I’ll be worth the trouble, Peeta. It’s been a while for me. I don’t…I didn’t even think I cared about dating someone anymore. I don’t know if I’d even be good at it at this point.”

He gives her a small smile. “Well, you fake-date pretty well.”

A small huff of amusement through her nose, and she lifts her eyes to the ceiling. “How do you know it’ll translate? I mean, you and me, what if it doesn’t work in a real setting? What if you’re different, or I’m different?”

“Katniss, this is me. I’ve always given you the real me. The only thing that was fake was the romance.” He thinks about it, then laughs ruefully. “Maybe that wasn’t so fake after all.”

She regards him uncertainly, but he thinks he can see the spark of hope in her expression. “So…you’re asking me for a real date,” she says, her tone wary but open.

He smiles slowly, sheepishly even. “Yeah. I can, uh, ask you again but with pants on this time, if you’d like.”

She laughs, the tension holding her body rigid evaporating. There’s a challenge in her gray eyes when they meet his, and a small smile turns her lips up. “Okay. I’ll go on a date with you. But you’re paying this time.”

His smile cracks wide open, and he laughs, with a resolute nod. “Yes. Of course.”


End file.
